Study Rationale: Our project will test the effectiveness of a new treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD) called RRx-001. We believe this drug could be beneficial in PD by blocking inflammasome activation which drives inflammation and has been linked to the PD progression.
Hypothesis: We propose that RRx-001 could be a safe and effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease based on our results in animal models and our ongoing clinical trials with this drug in other diseases.
Study Design: We will test the effectiveness of RRx-001 in multiple pre-clinical models of Parkinson’s disease and also in cell culture studies. We will determine if RRx-001 could prevent or rescue Parkinson’s pathology in these models, indicating that this drug could have potential to be tested in people with Parkinson’s.
Impact on Diagnosis/Treatment of Parkinson’s disease: There are currently no treatments for PD. Our drug has been shown to be safe and well-tolerated in human clinical trials date with no major adverse events reported. Therefore, if our testing of RRx-001 in PD models is successful in our project, it can directly enter clinical trials for PD as a new treatment.
Next Steps for Development: If results of our testing in pre-clinical models are positive, we will seek additional funding to progress this drug into Phase 2 clinical trials for Parkinson’s disease to determine if it could be a new means by which to slow or halt the progression of PD.