Madison-based biotech startup Stem Pharm Inc. and Verge Genomics, a biotech company using artificial intelligence (AI) and patient tissue data for drug discovery, announced in a recent press release a collaboration on drug discovery for Parkinson’s disease (PD).
Verge and Stem Pharm have partnered with a focus on harnessing the power of neural organoids — 3D models of human neural tissue derived from stem cells. By creating a Parkinson’s disease model using neural organoids, the companies aim to gain insights into the underlying mechanisms of the disease and validate potential drug targets.
Stem Pharm was also recently awarded two grants, including a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institutes of Health and a Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Cancer Institute. These will help advance drug discovery for Alzheimer’s Disease and research into glioblastoma, respectively.
