Bio

Dr. Tamara Seredenina is Group Leader supervising TDP-43 biology and neuroinflammation programs at AC Immune, Swiss biotech company specialized in the development of innovative therapeutics and diagnostic tools for neurodegenerative disorders including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. Tamara has more than 15 years of experience in validation of new drug targets for neurodegenerative disorders. Tamara joined AC Immune in 2016. In her previous position Tamara was a senior researcher at the University of Geneva investigating therapeutic potential of targeting NADPH oxidases in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Prior to this she was performing identification and validation of new therapeutic targets for Huntington’s disease at the EPFL in Switzerland and for Alzheimer’s disease at SienaBiotech in Italy. Tamara holds a PhD degree in molecular biology received in 2006.

 

Abstract

Development of immunotherapy for TDP-43 proteinopathies
Tamara Seredenina, PhD, AC Immune SA, Lausanne, Switzerland

Accumulation of pathological transactive response DNA binding protein 43 (TDP-43) into intracellular inclusions underlies frontotemporal lobar degeneration with TDP-43 pathology (FTLD-TDP), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy (LATE). TDP-43 pathology is present as a co-pathology in other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Multiple mechanisms contribute to spreading of TDP-43 pathology including transmission across synaptic terminals, exosomes and release of misfolded TDP-43 from dying neurons. In fact, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) obtained from ALS/FTLD-TDP patients contains seeding-competent TDP-43 species. Therefore, antibody-mediated clearance of pathological TDP-43 represents an attractive therapeutic strategy. In this talk I will describe the process of developing and validating new therapeutics by using AC immune’s TDP-43 monoclonal antibody program as an example.