A researcher has invented a non toxic medicine that forces immune cells that are overactive to die.
A researcher of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has created a new way to stop and even reverse rheumatoid arthritis. He has developed a replication of a suicide molecule that can float, without being detected, into hyperactive immune cells that are responsible for the disease. This stealthy molecule, also whimsically referred to as Casper the Ghost, triggers the immune cells to auto-destruct.
This approach has been tested on mice and does not carry health risks of actual treatments. Harris Perlman, a leading author and an associate professor of medicine at Fienberg, reported that this novel therapy halted the disease cold in 75 percent of the mice on which it was tested. Moreover, the best part of the therapy is that it does not result in any kind of toxicity. This has therefore a great deal of potential to create a completely new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
Immune cells that are healthy are meant to die after they have attacked an invading bacteria or virus. However, in rheumatoid arthritis, the immune cells known as macrophages live and go rogue. These cells proliferate in the blood, build up in the joints and attack the cartilage and bone. At this time, there is no efficient, non toxic way to halt them.
Perlman found out that immune cells in rheumatoid arthritis are few in a vital molecule known as Bim. The job of the latter is to order the cells to auto-destruct themselves. In order to rectify that shortage, Perlman has developed a replication of the molecule, called BH3 mimetic. When Harris injected the drug that he had developed into the mice who were suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, it floated like a ghost into their macrophages and the yet resisting immune cells self destructed.
Through his research, Harris has shown that the molecule could avoid the development of rheumatoid arthritis and initiate a diminution of the existing disease. After the drug was injected in the animals with the disease, the joint swelling was decreased and the bone destruction reduced.
Present treatments for rheumatoid arthritis consist of low-level chemotherapy and steroids. However, these treatments are not always effective and they are usually accompanied by side effects. Biologic response modifiers are a newer class of therapy. They are frequently used in combination with chemotherapy and steroids. These are antibodies or other proteins that decrease the inflammation that is produced by the overactive immune cells.
Nonetheless, these biologics do not work for everybody and it can be associated with side effects that include the risk of infection. Perlman explained that the step after this comprises of developing nanotechnology for a more accurate methods of delivering the drug. The National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases as well as the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease supported Perlman’s research.
Source: North Western
Wed, May 12, 2010
Anti Aging, Anti Aging Products, Bioscience, Nanotechnology