McGill University, The Neuro and Fuzionaire Diagnostics to Develop Radiopharmaceuticals for Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease
Collaborators to leverage Fuzionaire Diagnostics’ radiochemistry platform to establish a new class of molecules for diagnosis and treatment of neurodegeneration
PASADENA, Calif.: Fuzionaire Diagnostics, Inc. (“Fuzionaire Dx”) has announced a collaborative research agreement with McGill University (“McGill”) and The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital). The collaboration will combine Fuzionaire Dx’s radiopharmaceutical discovery platform and the world-class nuclear medicine and clinical imaging capabilities at McGill and The Neuro to develop new ways to detect and treat neurodegenerative diseases.
Fuzionaire Dx’s versatile chemistry-driven platform, which can radiofluorinate molecules in seconds and at ambient temperature, has the potential to generate a wide variety of novel radiopharmaceuticals enabling clinicians to better diagnose and treat cancers, tissue damage, and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. The platform could also become a new tool for drug discovery, offering valuable insights on the in vivo behavior of pharmaceutical lead compounds at an early stage.
This new collaborative research effort aims to produce radiopharmaceuticals that will localize and image abnormal tissues in the brain, leading to safe and affordable non-invasive diagnostic imaging tests for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and traumatic brain injury. The collaboration will also explore the viability of Fuzionaire Dx’s radiochemistry platform to evaluate investigational therapies against neurodegenerative disease.
“The possibilities of this joint research project are compelling,” said Jean-Philip Lumb, PhD, Associate Professor of Chemistry at McGill. “We’re looking forward to exploring powerful new chemistry with the state-of-the-art radiochemistry and brain imaging infrastructure at McGill and The Neuro.”
In addition to Dr. Lumb, primary leadership for the scientific collaboration includes Alexey Kostikov, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University, and Anton Toutov, PhD, Chief Science Officer of Fuzionaire Dx.
“Fuzioniare Dx is an exciting collaborator for McGill and The Neuro as we seek to translate new fundamental science into the next generation of diagnostic probes and treatment options for neurodegenerative disease,” said Dr. Kostikov.
"This is the beginning of an important partnership,” said Nick Slavin, CEO of Fuzionaire Dx. “By combining strengths, we can expand our platform across the blood-brain barrier and work towards important new radiopharmaceuticals that could impact the health outcomes of many people.”
Supporting Fuzionaire Dx's new work expanding its radiochemistry platform to brain imaging, Jacob Hooker, PhD, an organic chemist with an expertise in neuroimaging, has joined Fuzionaire Dx as a consultant and a member of the scientific advisory board. Dr. Hooker is an Associate Professor in Radiology at Harvard Medical School and Director of Radiochemistry at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is known for innovative radiochemistry methodology and the development of imaging agents for the central nervous system.
