Charles River Laboratories announces extended relationship with The Michael J. Fox Foundation

Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. announced an extension of its long-standing collaboration with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF), a leading organisation working to support the diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Since 2011, Charles River and MJFF have worked together to accelerate the discovery of therapies for PD. This latest extension includes grants from MJFF to support two projects:

• The in vivo phenotyping of an α-synuclein knockout model and an α-synuclein A53T knockin model; and
• Establishment and validation of a pre-clinical model to test LRRK2 kinase inhibitors.

In Vivo Phenotyping

With MJFF support, Charles River has launched a new project, focused on in vivo phenotyping of an α-synuclein knockout model and an α-synuclein A53T knockin model. Over the next two years, Charles River will develop and provide a baseline phenotype of these models, creating invaluable tools to drive discovery programs aimed at bringing novel PD therapies to the clinic.

LRRK2 Inhibitors

Additionally, Charles River and MJFF have renewed a longstanding project to continue advancing efforts to test novel small molecule LRRK2 kinase inhibitors. The inhibition of the kinase LRRK2, which in humans has been genetically linked to development of PD, is a promising novel therapeutic strategy. The goal is to determine optimal dosing strategies to achieve efficacy with LRRK2 inhibitors, while avoiding the lung alterations that have been reported in previous research.