Tau Consortium
Research Areas
At a Glance
- Status: Active Consortium
- Year Launched: 2010
- Initiating Organization: The Rainwater Charitable Foundation
- Initiator Type: Nonprofit foundation
- Rare disease
- Disease focus:
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, other Taupathies - Location: International
Abstract
The Tau Consortium is an international group of clinical and basic scientists who work together with a sense of urgency to understand, treat, and cure tau-related disorders (tauopathies), including progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism, and corticobasal degeneration. The consortium studies tau in a comprehensive manner with the goal of understanding how changes in the gene and protein lead to neurodegenerative disease. Within the Tau Consortium, research findings are formally shared with the goal of stimulating new ideas and generating new partnerships across our distributed laboratories.
Mission
The Tau Consortium commissions world-class research and drug discovery to treat and prevent progressive supranuclear palsy and other tauopathies by 1) assuring that our scientists work collaboratively and 2) engaging with partners who can accelerate our progress. We always act with urgency with the patient in mind. Within 2 years, we want to find ten leading targets and within 4 years find three target compounds that will be ready for human trials. The primary goal of this consortium is to speed the discovery of treatments for diseases caused by the abnormal accumulation of tau.
Consortium History
The Tau Consortium was founded in 2010 to find a cure for diseases related to the protein tau. The Rainwater Charitable Foundation brought together a group of physicians and scientists to work in a precision medicine space to advance research into progressive supranuclear palsy, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and related disorders that have tau aggregation as the underlying mechanism. The Foundation created an environment where highly collaborative experts could come together and share research methods, ideas, and results in a protected space.
Structure & Governance
Outside of the contributing research members, the consortium is overseen by the Rainwater Charitable Foundation
Financing
The Rainwater Charitable Foundation has contributed $100 million, including $15 million annually.
Patient Engagement
Clinical trials for patients with PSP have been utilized by the consortium.
Data Sharing
The consortium promotes the formal sharing of research for the betterment of innovation and discovery.
Impact/Accomplishment
The Tau Consortium has already had a significant impact. Within the first year of existence, the consortium evaluated compounds that were FDA approved for safety and tolerability in other conditions. This effort has led to the identification of a broad variety of potential therapies. Recently, the consortium launched meetings to begin the planning of clinical trials with investigators around the world sharing research study design, patients, and data. While the number of people with disease involving tau exclusively may be small, the ultimately successful approach will likely apply to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Lewy body dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), and other diseases that involve misfolded proteins.
The consortium currently provides funding and infrastructure for 30 different investigators from around the United States and Europe to work on highly specific research projects designed to better diagnose and treat tau-related disorders.
Links/Social Media Feed
|
Homepage |
http://tauconsortium.org/ |
Points of Contact
info@tauconsortium.org
Sponsors & Partners
For a list of Tau Consortium investigators, click here