Parkinson’s disease news: New experimental drug could improve lives of MILLIONS
NLY01 has been described as “amazingly protective” following preliminary trials showing it stopped brain cells from dying.
The study, published in Nature Medicine, was conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in the US, who believe the drug will could be tested on humans later this year.
If trials on human beings are successful, the NLY01 will become one of the first drugs to directly target the progression of Parkinson's, rather than just blocking its symptoms.
Professor Ted Dawson, who led the three-part study on mice and human brain tissue, said: “It [NLY01] is amazingly protective of target nerve cells.”
NLY01 binds to glucagon-like peptide-1 receptors on the surface of certain cells.