Israeli Professor Creates 5-Mer Peptide That Can Potentially Cure Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Crohn’s Disease

Inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s, and Crohn’s significantly impact the quality of life of those affected. Professor David Naor at the Lautenberg Center for Immunology and Cancer Research at Hebrew University’s Institute for Medical Research Israel–Canada (IMRIC), part of the university’s Faculty of Medicine, believes he may have found the key not only to control these diseases, but perhaps mitigate the symptoms of at least some of them. Prof. Naor, supported by Hebrew University’s technology-transfer company Yissum, the Israeli government, Galmed Pharmaceuticals, and Spherium Biomed of Spain, has dedicated the last decade to creating a 5-mer peptide that neutralizes pathological amyloid proteins. The amyloid protein clumps are common to a variety of inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases, such as MS,  Alzheimer’s, and Crohn’s.

In the research studies, the injection or oral delivery of the peptide into mice that model the above indicated diseases have met with notable success, with evidence showing curtailed inflammatory cell accumulation and significant reductions in the characteristic manifestations of the diseases. Naor predicts that replicating the experiments in humans could achieve similar results to those of the trials on mice, as the peptide design was based on a human material template and has previously demonstrated anti-inflammatory effects when interacting with human cell cultures. The peptide design was based on academic studies published in Journal of Clinical Investigation.