Shaping the Future of Drug Discovery

Stemnovate Ltd. and Dr Nick Ktistakis from the Babraham Institute will support a proof-of-principle project to understand how the cellular quality control process of autophagy targets protein aggregates in the brain. Using blood or skin samples from volunteer donors, the research project will look to provide an important piece in the puzzle to determine how autophagy is important for brain health.

Autophagy is a process of nutrient recycling and elimination of unnecessary or damaged cellular material in cells, leading to a periodic clean-up of the cell interior and recycling of nutrients during times of low resources.

Stemnovate partners Prof Cliona O’Farrelly at Trinity College, Ireland to find out why some people can block infection by hepatitis C, in a bid to improve treatment. Prof Cliona O’Farrelly has made exciting discoveries about the liver immune system, and now she is keen to know what antiviral strategies we can learn from women whose immune systems seem to block hepatitis C virus from establishing an infection. Stemnovate has expertise in reprogramming cells to multiple cell types. The adult cells, blood cells or skin cells are reprogrammed with human genes expressed in embryonic stages but without the use of any embryos. The cells acquire properties like Embryonic stem cells that can then differentiate to form neurons, heart cells and liver cells.

Stemnovate established a collaboration with Dr Maria Christophorou at Babraham Institute to identify epigenetic and signalling mechanisms involved in cellular reprogramming that can potentially increase efficiency and safety for cellular therapies.

The project entitled ‘Reprogramming cells from the outside in’ focuses on studying chromatin-modifying enzyme peptidyl arginine deiminase IV (PADI4)modulation as a mode of enhancing cell reprogramming The project received funding under the BBSRC Collaborative Training Partnership.