x-tosis lands a $2.74M Michael J. Fox Foundation grant to push XTS001 — a brain-penetrant VDAC1-oligomerization blocker — toward Parkinson's

Time for the most conflicted post on the site again — flagged, as always.

On June 23, 2026, x-tosis — the company I co-founded — announced a $2.74 million grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, awarded through its Parkinson's Disease Therapeutics Pipeline Program. The money goes toward advancing XTS001, x-tosis's lead candidate, toward clinical development.

Here's why it lands squarely on this blog. XTS001 is a brain-penetrant, orally available small molecule designed to inhibit VDAC1 oligomerization — the exact bad event I keep going on about: VDAC1 clumping into the big pore that leaks mtDNA, lights up inflammation, and helps kill stressed neurons. It comes off the company's MitoXTS™ platform of patented VDAC1-oligomerization inhibitors, and it builds directly on 50+ years of work by Professor Varda Shoshan-Barmatz — the same lineage as the VBIT compounds I wrote about. In preclinical Parkinson's models, x-tosis reports XTS001 reduced dopaminergic neuron loss and helped restore dopamine levels.

So this is the mechanism I care about, aimed at a disease where energy-starved neurons die — and a serious foundation just put real money behind testing it. That's genuinely exciting to me, and I'd be lying if I pretended to be neutral about it.