Takeda partners with Dundee University on tau pathology

The UK’s University of Dundee Drug Discovery Unit has announced a partnership with Japan’s largest drugmaker Takeda (TYO: 4502) to develop possible new therapeutic treatments for tau pathology, an underlying feature in several forms of neurodegeneration, including Alzheimer's disease.

Tau pathology occurs when the normal cellular protein, tau, misfolds and forms insoluble fibrils. It is found in the brains of sufferers of more than 20 different neurodegenerative diseases, of which Alzheimer's disease is the most common. Tau pathy is increasingly thought to be an important driver of disease progression. Recent studies demonstrate that tau pathology can spread from diseased to healthy cells in a "seeding" process, which is the focus of this collaboration.

Working in collaboration with Dr Will McEwan at the University of Cambridge and Dr Leo James at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, the Drug Discovery Unit has identified drug-like molecules that prevent seeded misfolding of tau.