John Manfredi, chief scientific officer at Sfida BioLogic in Salt Lake City, Utah, was awarded an MDA research grant totaling $161,995 over a period of two years to study the potential of new compounds for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). The new grant complements previous MDA-funded research by Manfredi into potential therapeutics for SMA.

SMA is caused by the loss of muscle-controlling nerve cells called motor neurons. These neurons have long extensions, called axons, which must remain in communication with muscle in order to promote normal movement. Manfredi and colleagues have identified several small molecules that promote the growth of axons of motor neurons. They have shown that these compounds can improve movement in flies with movement defects, and also have shown their potential in a fish model of SMA. They will now move on to test them in a mouse model of SMA.

“Importantly,” says Manfredi, “previous tests of the compounds in healthy adult rats and mice showed that the chemicals are nontoxic, metabolically stable, capable of entering the central nervous system” and remain active for a long time. All these are important for a compound to become a useful drug. Testing the ability of these compounds as potential treatments for SMA is the next step.

“Given the drug-like characteristics of the compounds, positive results in the SMA mice will nominate the compounds for clinical development,” Manfredi says. They also may shed light on whether these or similar compounds have potential in other diseases of axon degeneration, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease.

Funding for this MDA grant began Feb. 1, 2013.