Technology

Cognition’s proprietary chemistry platform, Novel Improved Chemical Extracts (N.I.C.E.), is a process that exploits readily available natural products to prepare novel, druglike compounds for screening. It is well known that natural products contain compounds with therapeutic potential, but these are often chemically unstable compounds. The N.I.C.E. process of chemical conditioning converts these natural products into low molecular weight chemically stable druglike molecules, and is thus a source of novel pharmacophores and valuable drug candidates.

Cognition’s proprietary compound screening platform, Early Alzheimer’s Screening System (E.A.S.SY.) uses mature primary hippocampal neurons in vitro and measures the changes in memory-related protein expression and membrane trafficking caused by the toxic Abeta protein. These changes mimic the changes seen in the human brain during the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and allow us to find compounds that block the effects of the toxic protein and leave the neurons in their normal state. Since these assays emphasize functional biological responses of neurons to the toxic proteins, the approach harkens back to the origins of the pharmaceutical industry, when behavioral measures were the sole screening method; here, neuronal behavior serves as the starting point.

Cognition’s unique combination of these two platforms provides a greater ability to predict which compounds are going to be effective in human Alzheimer’s disease.