molecules of the month

An old molecule and an old target come together. Squalamine was originally discovered in 1993 as an antimicrobial from the liver of the dogfish shark. It’s had a long and interesting history, investigated by Magainin/Genaera as a Ph. II antiangiogenic drug candidate for cancer and as a Ph. III opthalmic candidate for macular degeneration. One of the scientists from Magainin, Michael Zasloff, is now the co-founder and CSO of Enterin, a company trying to develop squalamine as an oral, non-systemic drug for Parkinson’s disease. The Parkinson’s disease hypothesis. α-synuclein aggregation is a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other synucleinopathies. α-synuclein aggregates are neurotoxic, but targeting α-synuclein directly is challenging due to its relatively small size (14 kDa), unclear but…