Clévio Nóbrega and his team found that cordycepin may be, in the future, a strategy to delay the progression of Machado-Joseph disease, and even other neurodegenerative diseases.

Clévio Nóbrega, researcher at the Centre for Biomedical Research, published, in the journal of Human Molecular Genetics the result of an investigation that culminates in an important discovery in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. The researcher and his team found that there is a new drug capable of delaying the progression of Machado-Joseph disease, an incurable condition manifested by a progressive loss of control in muscles and motor coordination, difficulty with speech and swallowing, clumsiness, with progressive damage to specific brain areas.

After several experiments, with very positive results in in vivo models, the researchers are now advancing with important revelations to what seems to be a possible therapeutic option for this neurodegenerative disease, which is especially prevalent in Azores Island.

Cordycepin, the drug studied in Clévio Nóbrega’s research, is already approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), in EUA, which can accelerate, in the future, its use in a clinical approach.

Although, as the researcher states, this finding doesn’t represent a cure, the research have particular importance since “cordycepin may constitute, in the future, an effective strategy to delay the progression of this and even other neurodegenerative diseases.”

For now, there is only a certainty: that this drug constitutes an effective and safe therapeutic approach to a disease relatively rare in almost all the world, but that affects one person in 4000 in the world and one person in 140 in Azores Island.

The results of the research, carried out in collaboration with the CNC (Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology), from University of Coimbra, and funded by AFM (The French Muscular Dystrophy Association), are now available online here.