Research network for small and medium-sized enterprises will fund the development of new therapies for autoimmune diseases
With its development project GO-Immun for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, ISAR Bioscience has once again been able to convince a renowned funding agency. The project sponsor AIF has announced the funding of the project as part of the Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. ISAR Bioscience is developing GO-Immun together with the team of Prof. Dr. George Kahaly at the University Medical Center Mainz.
The project combines two innovative technologies for the treatment of autoimmune diseases using the example of a common thyroid disease called Graves’ disease. Graves’ disease is triggered by autoantibodies; it becomes severe in many patients and can spread to the eye and is then referred to as Graves’ orbitopathy (GO).
The new technologies are, on the one hand, a procedure for creating so-called germinal centers in cell culture. Germinal centers are small structures in immune organs such as lymph nodes and the spleen, in which the cells that produce antibodies mature. Until now, they could only be studied in intact organisms. ISAR Bioscience now wants to produce them in cell culture without animal experiments and use them to test the development of new drugs.
Second, so-called Tolero-LNPs are to be developed with RNAs that are packaged in lipid nanoparticles (LNP). With Tolero-LNPs, ISAR Bioscience wants to develop a new therapeutic principle that will induce immune tolerance and thus stop autoimmune diseases. The new Tolero-LNPs are to be tested and optimized with the help of the artificial germinal centers.
In the long term, ISAR Bioscience plans to further explore GO-Immun in such a way that other autoimmune diseases can also be treated with this innovative method.
