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Grant funding secured to explore Midatech’s gold nanoparticle technology in immunotherapy

Midatech Pharma announced that its research collaboration with Cardiff University in autoimmune therapies has received a two-year funding grant from JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), for a project entitled "Gold nanoparticles coupled with selective PAMP ligands to deliver antigen specific immunotherapy" in diabetes, the commonest autoimmune disease worldwide.

The project, using Midatech’s platform gold nanoparticle technology, will focus on developing tolerogenic mechanisms that dampen unwanted autoimmune responses to normal healthy cells in the pancreas, thus preserving the ability of these cells to continue producing insulin.

It will be led by Professor Colin Dayan, Professor of Clinical Diabetes and Metabolism, Cardiff University, and is due to start in October 2016. The total value of the grant is $477,437, of which $150,000 is due to Midatech.

Commenting on the grant, Dr Jim Phillips, CEO of Midatech said: "The application of gold nanoparticle technology in immunotherapy is developing rapidly and presents a significant opportunity to make a difference in the treatment of autoimmune diseases such diabetes, as well as our increasing focus on oncology indications including of brain, liver, pancreatic and ovarian cancer.

"The interest in applying Midatech’s proprietary technology across a broad range of therapies demonstrates the potential of the platform and for the Group’s pipeline."

Professor Colin Dayan, leading the project at Cardiff University, added: "Cardiff University looks forward to this continued collaboration using Midatech’s gold nanoparticle (GNP) technology which has shown great potential to preferentially target specific immune cells, distribute rapidly to lymphoid tissues around the body, and modify the body’s immune responses.

"This will be an important project for autoimmune diseases generally and diabetes specifically, and we are looking forward to developing this platform combination of Midatech GNP technology, and antigen-specific immunotherapy using a wide variety of tolerogenic small partner molecules."