Creative Bio-Peptides, Inc has been funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) as part of NIH’s strategic plan to support the development of innovative strategies and therapies to treat Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Our program “Development of a Novel Chemokine Receptor Antagonist Peptide as a Synapse Protecting Treatment for Neurodegeneration n Alzheimer’s Disease” is supported by a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. We are joined in this effort by researchers from Colorado State University and UCLA.
Cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s Diseases, as well as after brain injury, results from loss of neuronal spines and dendrites, preceding and independent of neuronal death. Neuoinflammation via innate immune and microglial processes cause neurodegeneration and loss of function. Creative Bio-Peptides will develop the oral CCR5 chemokine receptor antagonist peptide R103 to prevent, even reverse, synapse loss and neurodegeneration relevant to AD by determining the ability of R103 to preserve dendritic spines and protect synapse function in AD relevant tests . As a bridge to human clinical trials, will perform quantitative PET assessment of R103 inhibition of brain neuroinflammation as a translational target for human studies of R103 in dementias. The chemokine receptor CCR5 has recently been shown to be a translational target for recovery after TBI and stroke and by virtue of its ability to regenerate lost synapses (see Joy et al, 2019). The clinical (non-oral) analog of R103 was the octapeptide DAPTA, also called “Peptide T”, which restored cognitive function in multiple phase 2 clinical trials supported by the NIH, and normalized functional brain scans in Neuro-AIDS, by synapse regenerating mechanisms related to suppressing microglial activation and neuroinflammation. We expect to document synapse regenerating effects of R103 (also called “RAP-103”, receptor-active peptide) as a novel approach to treating AD with the potential to reverse, not merely slow, cognitive decline, as well as chronic pain caused by nerve damage in neuropathies caused by diabetes, nerve injury, or chemotherapy.
