The investor call presentation gave us a very good look at PYC...

The investor call presentation gave us a very good look at PYC thinking in relation to finding a breakthrough in neurodegenerative disease.

Big pharma/biotech have been treading the same boards for a long time: target misfolded proteins that aggregate in the brain. The hoary old chestnut is clumps of amyloid in Alzheimer's disease. An article titled Startup aims to treat Alzheimer's by invigorating neurons' garbage-disposal abilities, by Angus Liu published in Fierce Biotech, discusses a fresh approach by arguing that the body already has a mechanism for dealing with waste. Instead of targeting the waste, the plan is to target the waste or garbage-disposal system to get it properly functioning again.

PYC appear to be on the same plane of thinking. Its questioning the conventional wisdom that clumps of protein aggregates cause disease like Alzheimer's by asking whether the innate immune and other biological responses drive some or many neurodegenerative diseases. The two key areas are neuro inflammation and the process of autophagy, the cell cleaning garbage disposal system. For instance, the malfunction of autophagy leads to a toxic build up of unwanted proteins.

Returning to the article, scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine are targeting chaperone-mediated autophagy. We do not yet know what PYC might target except to say they can access different regions deep within the brain. The hope is that regulating neuroinflammation and restoring the autophagy process will of itself, take care of business or alternatively provide the foundation for combination with other targeted therapies.