Emulate, Inc. announced today that it has been awarded a research grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) to apply the company’s Organs-on-Chips to investigate the potential safety liabilities observed in a class of drug candidates called LRRK2 kinase inhibitors for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.
The MJFF grant will fund studies that use Emulate’s human-relevant system to evaluate and compare the parameters of lung toxicity that have been observed in animal studies with LRRK2 kinase inhibitors. The goal of the studies is to enable researchers to design better and safer drugs by using the Organs-on-Chips to predict human responses to drug candidates, evaluate drug safety, and gain insights into the mechanisms of action of LRRK2 kinase inhibitors. Leucine-rich repeat kinase-2 (LRRK2) mutations are a cause of Parkinson’s disease, and therapeutic inhibition of LRRK2 kinase activity may provide a means of addressing an underlying biochemical cause of Parkinson’s disease.