Intellect Neurosciences, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of disease-modifying therapeutic agents for the treatment of Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases, has entered into a collaboration agreement with the University of California, Irvine to test RV03 a preclinical, first-in-class, dual acting peptide vaccine candidate to induce an immune response against beta amyloid and delta tau. Delta tau is thought to be the earliest pathological form of tau protein prior to the formation of neurofibrillary tangles in the brain of Alzheimer's patients. RV03 will be tested for both its therapeutic and prophylactic potential.
Intellect will be collaborating with Dr Frank LaFerla, Chancellor's Professor and Chair, Neurobiology and Behavior School of Biological Sciences, Director, Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders and his team, in collaboration with Dr. Kim Green. Previously, Dr. LaFerla's group proposed a novel mechanism establishing a causative link between the accumulation of beta amyloid in the brain of Alzheimer's patients and the formation of neurofibrillary tangles comprised of tau protein. This was an important step towards explaining how these two different proteins act synergistically to cause irreversible damage and death of nerve cells.
"These studies at the University of California at Irvine are an essential next step in the development of our RV03 program, and we anticipate positive results. Once complete, we will be ready to embark on an aggressive development program to test RV03 in human clinical trials," said Dr Daniel Chain, chairman and CEO of Intellect Neurosciences. "We look forward to working with Dr. LaFerla and his team, and are grateful for the University of California at Irvine's commitment of resources and expertise to help us test our First-in-Class vaccine, which we expect will result in a method to safely halt the progression and perhaps even prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease."
RV03 is a product of Intellect's RECALL-VAX platform technology that is designed to produce antibodies that specifically target the unique molecular signatures (neoepitopes) that exist only in products of protein metabolism. Relevant examples include the free amino terminus of amyloid (Amyloid beta) at the beta secretase site produced from the amyloid precursor protein and the free C terminus of delta tau from intact microtubule associated protein Tau produced by executioner caspases. In contrast to other Alzheimer's vaccines in development that target single proteins, RV03 is uniquely capable of eliciting an immune response against both Amyloid beta and delta tau at the same time.
"My laboratory was the first to demonstrate that Amyloid beta facilitates the accumulation of Tau through a variety of mechanisms including by interfering with proteasome function and by reducing a key chaperone protein called Chip," said Dr. LaFerla. "Therefore, we were excited to be asked to participate in the seminal work being done at Intellect Neurosciences to test the therapeutic and prophylactic potential of RV03. Our combined research aims to develop the first dual vaccine against these two important therapeutic targets to prevent the irreversible damage and death of nerve cells caused by these two proteins."