Reunanen’s project addresses a long-standing limitation in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. While Levodopa remains the most effective symptomatic therapy available, a significant portion of each dose fails to reach the brain. One contributing factor is the degradation of levodopa in the gastrointestinal tract by gut microbial activity, reducing treatment efficiency.
" I’m honored to share that I won the pitch competition with talk "Breaking the Wall of Current Parkinson’s Therapy." I had three minutes to convince the jury to rethink how we deliver the most important Parkinson’s drug we have. Levodopa has been the cornerstone of treatment for decades, yet only less than half of each dose actually reaches the brain, partly because gut microbes degrade the drug before it ever gets there. Our answer is DOPAGuard: a single-molecule dual inhibitor designed to protect levodopa from gut microbial degradation. Thanks to the great team including our medicinal chemists Jayendra Z. Patel and Darshitkumar R. Patel it became a real molecule that I've been able to test both in animals and on the lab bench. "
The project is funded by the Business Finland commercialization funding (2026–2028).