These old drugs can actually "cross-border" treatment, and the future is boundless August 23, 2016 Source: Singularity Network should be raining The development of new drugs has always been a key business of various pharmaceutical companies, but the time required to develop new drugs is very long, and there are high demands on manpower and material resources. Then if you can use existing drugs to treat another disease, the recovery of the disease and the relief of research and development pressure are excellent. There are many scholars who pay attention to this field. Professor Ding Xianting from Shanghai Jiaotong University is one of them. Last month, he published an article in Nature, calling for more emphasis on the use of old drugs in the field of drug screening, and changing the original use of drugs. Professor Ding's point of view is that disease is a combination of a variety of pathological phenomena, and the combination of synergistic drugs should be a multiplier. In addition, from a commercial point of view, most pharmaceutical companies have little interest in testing old drugs that have expired patents, but advocating "new drugs for new drugs" is likely to bring new value and business opportunities to them. Therefore, Professor Ding also suggested that the government can properly intervene and fund the research to facilitate the development of these studies. [1] Professor Ding Xianting The reason why such a viewpoint is put forward is of course inseparable from the discovery of many "new drugs for new use" in modern scientific research. The first thing we want to talk about is the field of cancer treatment. When all kinds of treatments, "Eight Immortals Cross the Sea, Everything Shows", an inconspicuous drug for malaria treatment is hitting the "search bullseye" of several scientists at Oxford University! They found that the commonly used anti-malarial drug Atovaquone can improve the efficiency of radiotherapy in cancer treatment. The results were published in the journal Nature Communications. "Hand in hand" between anti-malarial drugs and cancer radiotherapy Radiotherapy is a common method for clinical treatment of cancer. It uses radiation to illuminate the tumor area, destroying the DNA material and cell membrane structure of cancer cells, thereby inhibiting the division and growth rate of cancer cells, and reducing or even eradicating tumors. According to statistics, 65-75% of cancer patients in China need radiotherapy every year. However, the cruel fact is that the "good efficacy" of radiotherapy is mostly effective for patients with initial cancer or mid-stage cancer. For advanced patients, doctors can only use palliative radiotherapy to relieve pain, relieve stress, etc., and alleviate the pain of the patient. Why is this? Because the growth rate of cancer cells in large tumors exceeds the ability of blood to provide oxygen, a considerable number of cancer cells are in anoxic state. In this state of hypoxia, there are not enough oxygen free radicals in the cancer cells to bind to the DNA destroyed by the radiation, so that the damaged DNA is very easy to be repaired, and the radiotherapy is "slipped." Therefore, it is not difficult to guess that the role of Atovaquone is to effectively increase the oxygen content in cancer cells, so that the damaged DNA loses the chance of being repaired, so that radiotherapy can also exert its advantages in advanced cancer patients. As an anti-malarial drug, Atovaquone has a weak inhibitory effect on mitochondria in human cells. Because mitochondria is the final place of consumption of oxygen after entering the human body, this inhibition means that the utilization rate of oxygen by cells will slow down. The oxygen content in the cells naturally increases. In the actual experiment, in vitro cultured pharyngeal and lung cancer tumor models, combined with Atovaquone radiotherapy killed 90% of cancer cells. In the treatment of mice with pharyngeal cancer, the growth of tumors in the Atovaquone group was approximately twice as slow as in mice receiving radiotherapy alone. In addition, in the statistics of cancer cell survival rate, Atovaquone group is also far ahead, the rate of cancer cell survival rate declines up to 56.2%! With the success of the experiment, Professor Gillies McKenna, who led the research, has also begun preliminary small-scale clinical trials in patients with lung cancer. If laboratory results can also occur, then a wide range of clinical trials are only a matter of time. [2] "Treatment" of cancer treatment drugs for cardiovascular diseases Existing malaria drugs "g" cancer, but cancer drugs are also "unwilling to be lonely." Scientists have had an interesting discovery before that healthy cells in the human body carry a protein, CD47, which attaches to the cell surface and tells the macrophages in the immune system to "don't eat me." The cancer cells are "small and picturesque", while they say "Don't eat me", while releasing the message "Come on! Come eat me!", though, the macrophages only recognize "Don't eat me". Information will not devour it. Macrophages Using this loophole, scientists used anti-CD47 antibodies to "shield" the "don't eat me" signal, so that "all-in-one" cancer cells were swallowed by macrophages. When the normal cells are about to die, the CD47 protein will slowly disappear. When the macrophages receive the information of the CD47 protein, they know that the cells have "dead" and will "start" to swallow the cells. Coincidentally, a group of scientists from Stanford found many cells that are about to die and have died in atherosclerotic plaques. They should have been swallowed by macrophages, but they don't know why they are alive. Atherosclerosis is the main cause of coronary heart disease and cerebral infarction, so the researchers thought, can the use of CD47 antibody prevent these diseases? So they simulated the atherosclerotic environment in mice, using anti-CD47 antibody to treat, it was found that it can prevent atherosclerotic plaque accumulation, and even a large proportion of mice also have atherosclerotic plaque shrinkage ! It is important to know that this is difficult to see in cardiovascular model mice. [3] Schematic diagram of atherosclerosis What makes the CD47 protein on the surface of the "live cells" around the atherosclerotic plaque disappear? This is to "blame" a factor TNF-α. Experiments have shown that TNF-α can promote the overexpression of CD47 protein and prevent the decrease of CD47 protein level in the cells that are about to die. In turn, the “live cells†accumulated around the atherosclerotic plaque can release and promote the production of TNF-α. Substance. Such a vicious circle makes macrophages "blind at work", but anti-CD47 antibodies can prevent this vicious cycle. For this achievement, the researchers have applied for patents, and the development of clinical trials is also poised for development. Analgesics achieve "reversal" of Alzheimer's disease After talking about cancer and cardiovascular disease, we also talk about chronic diseases. For the majority of female compatriots, dysmenorrhea should be a familiar experience. There should also be many girls who have taken painkillers. One of the painkillers is mefenamic acid, which is called wet pain. Mefenamic acid belongs to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which can reduce inflammation and analgesia. However, the side effects of mefenamic acid are more serious in similar drugs, so it is generally only used as a short-term analgesic drug, and its effect on dysmenorrhea is particularly good. It may be that this effect is too prominent, so that everyone almost forgets that it can also reduce inflammation, and the "new drug use" of methicillin is related to the anti-inflammatory effect. Researchers at the University of Manchester have found that mefenamic acid can reverse the memory loss in mice with Alzheimer's disease! According to Dr. David Brough, the head of the study, there is already evidence that inflammation in the brain worsens the condition of Alzheimer's disease, and this study inhibits the formation of inflammation in the brain (NLRP3 inflammasome). To reduce damage to brain cells. And so far, this is the first drug that has the potential to reverse Alzheimer's disease! [4] Dr. David Brough The article, once published in the journal Nature Communications, caused widespread discussion because the study was only successful in mice. In the experimental group, 10 mice with memory loss of A disease were injected with mefenamic acid by subcutaneous implantation. At the same time, there was a group of 10 mice, and the same method was used to inject the placebo. After one month, the condition of the mice in the experimental group was completely reversed! They returned to a state of no disease. For this result, Dr. Doug Brown of the Alzheimer's Association said that this is a promising study. If successful in clinical trials, this is 15 years ahead of the development of a new drug for treatment from scratch. For this reason, everyone is very much looking forward to the follow-up trial of this drug. Although we have to admit that the "new use" of these drugs has not really been successful in clinical human trials, it is always necessary to take this step to see hope. Regardless of the final clinical outcome of these three studies, I think they are very valuable for the inspiration of the pharmaceutical industry. Blowing Mouth,Disposable Blowing Mouth,Filter Spirometer Mouthpiece,Disposable Spirometer Mouthpiece Hengshui Qifei Paper Products Co. LTD , https://www.hengshuiqifei.com
These old drugs can actually "cross-border" treatment, and the future is boundless