June 21, 2013: 5 years with the Foundation
For Global ALS Day, the Thierry Latran Foundation wants to celebrate its 5th anniversary!
The Thierry Latran Foundation was created in order to:
- Orchestrate effective research in order to find a treatment
- Innovate the selection of projects to uncover new perspectives
- Produce results
We have just finalized our fifth appeal for projects which has allowed 6 new projects. Out of these six, two could open up a clinical study.
- The project titled ‘’New strategy by inhibition of EphA4,’’ carried out by Philip van Damme, of the team of Wim Robberecht (Louvain, Belgium). It follows a project that we have already financed and presented; it allowed us to determine that this receptor influenced the progression of the disease not only in animal models but also in the human. What remains now is to test the impact of inhibition and then move on to the next stage.
- The project ‘’Preclinical study on the impact of blockage of the protein CD95L’’ was carried out by Jochen Weishaupt (Ulm, Germany). If positive, this project will lead directly to a clinical study, and the subject tested is already in fact in the process of clinical testing in other indications. The protein CD95L contributes to peripheral monocytes in ALS. It has been shown that this inflammation contributes to neurodegeneration.
A total of 35 projects with an amount of nearly 5 million Euros (about 1 million Euros per year) are endowed or in the process of endowment.
The first series of financed projects is now finalized and evaluated.
They have already given rise to a record number (30 at the end of May) of high-level scientific publications, worthy of the interest in results.
If several hypotheses should have been discarded, new therapeutic screening is under analysis; we finance equally a clinical trial aiming by way of an implant at the level of the diaphragm to augment respiratory capacity.
Our objectives are to finance and accelerate the diffusion of results by creating a community of researchers with an annual meeting which we finance. The 4th meeting was held in early June; 58 researchers presented and discussed with their peers and the scientific council the progress of their work. The confidential nature of these exchanges allowed again this year a deep discussion on the problems encountered and possible solutions.