Oliver Bandmann
Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
Professor Oliver Bandmann went to Medical School in Munich, Germany and did his PhD at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London, UK. He is now based at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN).
His group undertook the first ever drug screen in genetically stratified Parkinson’s disease patient tissue. 2000 compounds were assessed for their rescue effect on mitochondrial function.
Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) was identified as a particularly promising compound. UDCA has already been in clinical use for over 30 years and is therefore an ideal candidate for the drug-repositioning strategy.
He subsequently took UDCA into a phase II, proof of concept clinical trial, the “UP Study” (UDCA in Parkinson’s disease, NCT03840005). The novel trial design included 31PMR-spectroscopy to confirm target engagement and sensor-based assessment of motor impairment to objectively quantify disease progression.
A further focus of his work is mechanistic disease stratification of sporadic PD to enable future precision medicine approaches for this currently relentlessly progressive condition.