Cantabio Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced the signing of an agreement with Purdue Research Foundation to advance the company's development work on targeting DJ-1 protein small molecule pharmaceutical chaperone drug candidates for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease and other related neurodegenerative diseases. The agreement gives Cantabio access to intellectual property derived from the joint research done at Purdue University and Cantabio, further strengthening the company's intellectual property position in DJ-1 pharmaceutical chaperones, and provides further confidence in the validity of the therapeutic program for PD and neurodegenerative diseases in general. These drug candidates have now been validated in relevant cell disease model experiments in three separate laboratories, Purdue University, University of Antioquia and Cantabio Pharmaceuticals, thereby further increasing the company's confidence in taking these forward towards clinical trials. Pharmaceutical chaperones are small molecules designed to enter cells and serve as molecular scaffolding to prevent or reverse the misfolding and loss of function of proteins. Misfolded proteins are associated with numerous diseases, particularly neurodegenerative diseases including PD and Alzheimer's disease.