Med-Life Discoveries

01/29/2026

This year we are starting off the literature blog with a paper that discusses the effects of aging on the lipidome of the lateral ventricle choroid plexus, the main site of cerebrospinal fluid production.

Loupiac G, Andriambelo B, Avila-Lopez J, Vachon A, Avino M, Ahumada JR, Miard S, Picard F, Qiu Y, Kurland IJ, Laurent B, and Plourde M. (2025). The lipidome of the lateral ventricle choroid plexus exhibits sex-specific changes across aging. Journal of Neurochemistry

12/22/2025

From Shawn, Tara, Kaeli, and the rest of the MLD team, we want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season. Early in 2026 we will provide a more complete program update with tentative timelines. Our current focus is on getting a face-to-face meeting with the Agency, as they have indicated they would like to meet to discuss the overall trial design including confirmation of endpoints and details on how to safely dose escalate in patients. As you are aware, the FDA is in a state of chaos and combined with the shutdown, there have been delays in timeline across the board. The whole process continues to be slower than we would like, but all we can do is hope the FDA agrees to a productive discussion about the program and we eventually get this study going (especially since we just packaged all the drug for this study this week!!).

Our little team is as dedicated as ever to getting a safe plasmalogen therapy available for RCDP patients. We will get there! Have a great holiday season and we will be in touch in the new year.

Sincerely,

The MLD team

12/09/2025

For the final literature blog of 2025, we are looking at the role of lipid dysregulation in the Parkinson's disease brain.

Hällqvist J, Toomey CE, Pinto R, Baldwin T, Doykov I, Wernick A, Shahrani MA, Evans JR, Lachica J, Pope S, Heales S, Eaton S, Mills K, Gandhi S, and Heywood WE. (2025) Multi-omic analysis reveals lipid dysregulation associated with mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease brain. Nature Co...

10/29/2025

MLD has spent their time in Amsterdam at World Orphan Drug Congress Europe spreading awareness of RCDP and our PPI-1011 program, as well as highlighting the importance of the patients’ voice in drug development for an ultra rare disease.

10/20/2025

MLD is excited to be presenting a poster and two talks on our RCDP program at the World Orphan Drug Congress in Amsterdam next week.

MLD is excited to announce that it will be attending World Orphan Drug Congress (WODC) Europe in Amsterdam from October 27-29th. WODC Europe is the leading conference in Europe on the development of drugs for orphan diseases. The small patient populations in these orphan diseases means that the trad

10/09/2025

The influence that the type of bond in ether lipids has on their transport within a cell is the topic of this month's literature blog.

Böhlig K, Iglesias-Artola JM, Asaro A, Lennartz HM, Link AC, Drobot B, and Nadler A. (2025) Bifunctional probes reveal the rules of intracellular ether lipid transport. Angewandte Chemie

09/11/2025

This month the literature blog is discussing an interesting paper that evaluates the relationship between plasmalogens and L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia.

Kaya I, Vallianatou T, Nilsson A, Bjäterot P, Shariatgorji R, Svenningsson P, Bezard E, and Andren PE. (2025) Brain-region-specific lipid dysregulation in L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia in a primate model of Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s Disease Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurode...

07/24/2025

Dr. Tara Smith laying out the future plans for plasmalogen therapy in RCDP and the RhizoKids International conference

07/24/2025

Shawn Ritchie gave a great presentation this morning at the RhizoKids International conference talking about the basics of plasmalogens and how these special lipids underlie the RCDP disease process.

07/22/2025

MLD is thrilled to be back to Children’s Harbor for Rhizokids International 2025 Family Conference.

06/24/2025

MLD is excited to announce that we are heading to the RhizoKids Conference in July and we want to know what Rhizofamilies would like to hear about from us! Click the link to complete the poll.

Rhizofamilies we are thrilled to announce that MLD will once again be attending the annual RhizoKids Conference this July! Shawn Ritchie, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer, and Tara Smith, Exec. Vice President, will be there throughout the conference and would love to talk to everyone and answer any

05/31/2025

In support of RhizoKids International’s RCDP Awareness Day, MLD would like to help raise awareness and there is no better way to learn about this disease than from the parents of RhizoWarriors. For this reason, we are reposting the Voice of the Patient Report where many RCDP parents describe what the disease is like for their children and the challenges they face.