Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[nidan7500]

“These results show that activating the sigma-1 receptor (Sig-1R) with ANAVEX®2-73 can selectively induce the autophagy process and increase protein homeostasis in both in vitro and in vivo models,” said Christopher U. Missling, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Anavex. “The ability to identify key molecular functions in age-related disease is central to developing new therapeutic strategies that target these mechanisms and ultimately provide clinical impact by preventing or treating disease.”
Autophagy is a cellular process that cleans cells of defective proteins and is part of a set of mechanisms that participate in proteostasis, or the balance of the protein network. Loss of proteostasis and dysfunction of the autophagy process, has been closely linked to the pathogenesis of human neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and ALS1.
“There is a great amount of data linking dysfunction and malfunction of autophagy to neurodegenerative disease and, consistent with its role in proteostasis, to the accumulation of protein aggregates. Thus, the modulation of autophagy has become one key pharmacological target in neurodegeneration,” the researchers reported. “In fact, there are multiple overlaps of autophagy and pathogenesis pathways in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and ALS. Recently different alternative views and new pharmacological targets towards Alzheimer’s prevention and treatment are evolving and include a strong focus on the autophagy process.”
The Cells paper also noted that this is the ?rst report to show that Sig-1R activation enhances the autophagic ?ux in human cells and in C. elegans with positive effects on proteostasis in vitro and in vivo, an important concept towards the stabilization of neuronal survival and function that may help to prevent age-associated neurodegeneration.

If only the last 50 +/- had been spent asking WHY, then we would not be here.