Antioxidant with potential to combat neurodegenerative diseases developed at Porto Uni

Researchers from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP) have developed an antioxidant with the potential to become a drug to combat neurodegenerative diseases. In a study published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry today, researchers describe the development of an antioxidant “candidate drug” for neurodegenerative diseases. Lead researcher Fernanda Borges explains that in order to fight the alterations caused by ‘stress’ at the mitochondrial level, an oxidant “has to have, in its construction, a perfect set of pieces to be able to cross the cell and mitochondrial membrane and thus reach this cell component, essential to life”.