According to a recent news release, biotechnology company Amarantus BioSciences Inc, Sunnyvale, Calif, recently announced that it has yielded positive data from its research collaboration with Banyan Biomarkers, Alachua, Fla, developer of in-vitro diagnostic products designed to detect TBI. The collaboration was  designed to evaluate Amarantus BioSciences Inc’s proprietary anti-apoptotic therapeutic protein MANF and its implications for treatment in traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).

Gerald Commissiong, Amarantus president and CEO, emphasizes the organization’s excitement regarding the MANF Program and its implications in generating new products to treat concussions and other forms of TBI, “While this data is early on in development, we will be looking for innovative approaches to accelerate our TBI development program, while using Banyan’s proprietary panel of markers as a key metric in our companion drug-diagnostic strategy,” Commissiong adds.

The release reports that during in-vitro cell culture experiments, MANF exhibited the reproducibly ability to confer neuroprotective  properties in various cell death-related pathways. The data indicates that modulating MANF in patients immediately following TBI and in patients who have sustained multiple concussions over an extended period may promote recovery after TBI.

Andreas Jeromin, PhD, senior director of research at Banyan rearticulates the findings, noting that the data suggest that, “MANF has significant ability to reduce cell death from a variety of insults that simulate TBI as we have modeled in multiple assays in our internal laboratories at Banyan,” Jeromin says. Jeromin adds that the data has provided researchers with the confidence to move to the next phase of testing to further validate the approach and investigate innovative development strategies in order to expedite the process of providing MANF-based treatments to patients for TBI.

Source: Amarantus BioSciences