Mythology and medicine, an epic fight against Parkinson’s disease

Hey, comrades in knowledge, ready to delve into the mythological world of science and defeat Parkinson’s? So it turns out that chemist Matthew Disney, Ph.D., ventured into his own laboratory Olympus and voila! He presents us with a medicine with more twists than a mythological snake. The move is like facing the titan of Parkinson’s, this disease that plays a trick on you by taking away neurons and dopamine at a snail’s pace and we know, the longer it takes, the worse it gets: stiff muscles, tremors, and a parade of problems from sleeping to eating. What a party, right?

But Disney and his troop of researchers, armed with the sword of science and mythology, have decided to tackle the root cause of the problem: a toxi-alpha-synuclein protein that wanders through neurons as if it were their summer home. The trick here is to attack the RNA, the cell’s messenger, to prevent chaos from erupting, Disney has named its superweapon Syn-RiboTAC, which basically tells the ribosome, the protein factory, “Hey, buddy, you better not make that toxic protein.” Boom! Problem solved. According to Disney’s minions (aka graduate students), in mice with Parkinson’s, reducing alpha-synuclein by 25% is like giving your neurons a break. Therapeutic, bro! And in cells from Parkinson’s patients, Syn-RiboTAC reduces the production of the problematic protein by 50%. See? We’re talking about significant gains here!

But of course, it’s not all a walk in the mythological park, there’s still a long way to go before we can talk about human testing. Preparing for clinical trials is like a hero training for the final battle, it takes time, effort and the occasional stumble. Disney, the leader of this scientific epic, shares our eagerness to find a real solution for the warriors fighting Parkinson’s disease. So, let’s go for those better days! In short, folks, here we are, chasing the myth of a medicine that could be a game changer against Parkinson’s, stay tuned because this looks to be a real scientific odyssey. Until the next expedition for knowledge!