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Every project supported by Gebert Rüf Stiftung is made accessible with a web presentation that informs about the core data of the project. With this public presentation, the foundation publishes the funding results achieved and contributes to the communication of science to society.

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AzureCell – Developing next generation cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease

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The project management is responsible for the content of the information provided.

Project data

  • Project no: GRS-034/25 
  • Amount of funding: CHF 150'000 
  • Approved: 02.07.2025 
  • Duration: 11.2025 - 05.2027 
  • Area of activity:  InnoBooster, seit 2018

Project management

Project description

Every 9 min, a new patient is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, long considered incurable due to the irreversible loss of neurons in the brain. But today, there is hope, as it is now possible to produce these lost neurons from stem cells in the lab and to transplant them back into patients’ brains to restore their lives. However, current approaches are unscalable due to complicated production procedures and high costs, unsafe due to tumor risks, and unsustainable as many of the transplanted neurons eventually die in the brain. At AzureCell, leveraging decades of academic research and a portfolio of 5 patents, we’ve developed a groundbreaking approach that allows us to these specific challenges, and to develop scalable, safe and long-lasting cell therapies for Parkinson’s.

Status/Results

With the support of the GRS InnoBooster grant, AzureCell aims to further develop and optimize its proprietary production process, a critical step that will significantly accelerate our path toward submitting our first regulatory package for clinical trials and therefore play a key role in expediting our market entry and patient impact.

Links

Persons involved in the project

Dr. Bilal Fares, Senior scientific collaborator at UNIGE, Project Leader
Prof. Karl-Heinze Krause, President of the Foundation for Medical Research (FRM)
Prof. Emi Nagoshi, Associate Professor at the UNIGE
Dr. Lazaros Lataniotis, Senior Research Scientist at FRM
Lena Grollmus, Research technician at FRM

Last update to this project presentation  21.10.2025