Two foundations are pairing up to fund work toward new treatments for a group of diseases caused by mitochondrial dysfunction.
The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and Foundation for Mitochondrial Medicine will award up to $200,000 to non-profit academic institutions and for-profit biotech companies. Qualifying organizations and companies should be conducting translational research for therapies that address mitochondrial dysfunction.
Present in all of the body’s cells except for red blood cells, mitochondria create most of the energy the body needs to sustain life and grow. When they fail, cell injury or cell death occur. This process has been linked to a number of rare diseases that fall under the classification of mitochondrial diseases, and also associated with Alzheimer’s disease and autism.
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Pittsburgh’s Knopp Biosciences, Silicon Valley’s Edison Pharmaceuticals and Khondrion in The Netherlands are a few companies that are developing drugs for these conditions.
Areas of priority for the grants include discovery and development of drugs that alter mitochondrial function, discovery of new biomarkers of mitochondrial dysfunction, validation of mitochondrial assays and screening existing drugs for activities related to mitochondrial function.
The foundations say they will award one or two grants in the range of $100K to $200K for one year duration, with the possibility of follow-on funding. The deadline is September 5, but letters of intent should be submitted by August 22.
[Image credit: Wikipedia]
