$315,000 awarded to Dr. Kessen Patten, an assistant professor at Centre INRS–Institut Armand-Frappier, Laval, QC.
Dr. Patten started his research career as a PhD student at the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Declan Ali in 2004. There he trained in electrophysiology, cell biology and imaging using zebrafish as a model to study neurodevelopment. After publishing several manuscripts on his discoveries and receiving multiple awards, including national recognition for the outstanding quality of his PhD thesis, Dr. Patten pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in Montreal with Drs. Florina Moldovan and Pierre Drapeau. During that time, among other achievements, he developed zebrafish models of human disease including ALS, and used those models to develop a high-throughput method for drug discovery. This procedure was then used by Dr. Patten in the identification of pimozide as a lead compound in a translational pipeline that has led to a multi-centre Canadian clinical trial to start in 2017. The trial is being supported by the first ALS Canada-Brain Canada Arthur J. Hudson Translational Team Grant that was awarded in 2014.
In the initial years of his independence as an Assistant Professor, Dr. Patten will pursue the development and use of zebrafish models of the most common genetic cause of ALS, C9orf72, as well as use of the high-throughput screening method to examine more promising compounds for further examination. As a key addition to his work, he has formed strong collaborations with international ALS experts with proficiency in developing motor neurons from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that will undoubtedly strengthen the ability to translate zebrafish discoveries to the clinic via the use of human cells.
Dr. Patten has been a regular attendee at the ALS Canada Research Forum for the past several years and has formed relationships with a number of other investigators in the community. Combined with multiple other Canadian investigators using ALS model zebrafish, C. elegans worms, Drosophila fruit flies, mice, rats and iPSC derived motor neurons, Dr. Patten will strengthen this country’s expertise on forming a pipeline of drug discovery that can efficiently reach the clinic and ultimately help make ALS a treatable, not terminal disease.