Greek myth inspires new drug
U of R researchers get attacking immune cells to gobble up a drug that kills them
REGINA Many are familiar with the story of how Greek soldiers were able to infiltrate the city of Troy by hiding inside a giant wooden horse supposedly left as a peace offering.
The strategy helped them win the Trojan war and now the Greek myth has become the inspiration behind a new drug treatment, and hopefully one day a cure, for multiple sclerosis (MS).
Despite being in the early stages of a study, drug trials have already shown significant results, according to the man behind the idea, University of Regina associate professor Josef Buttigieg.
“The last thing I want to do is give someone false hope,” said Buttigieg. “All I have to say is that it’s extremely promising.”
To understand the drug and how it functions like a sneaky Trojan horse, one must first understand how MS works.
An autoimmune disorder that attacks the central nervous system, MS can cause numbness in a limb, paralysis and cognitive and vision loss.
“Basically what happens is the immune cells start to attack oneself and they degrade the myelin protein that is coating neuronal axons,” said U of R lab tech and the study’s lead, Anastasye Kisheev.
Neuronal axons are the primary transmission lines of the nervous system and, as bundles, they help make up nerves.
The drug mimics myelin protein, which the defective immune cells go after. What the immune cells don’t know before they engulf the myeline protein is that it has been programmed with a “death cue” that triggers apoptosis or cell death.
In other words, the immune cells unwittingly gobble up the drug/myelin protein, which essentially has what Buttigieg describes as a bomb attached to it, killing themselves.
And so far, Buttigieg, who is supervising the study, says the drug has worked.
In its second trial, which includes animal testing, mice that have been induced with MS are being treated with the drug.
On Buttigieg ’s Facebook page, a before and after video of a mouse shows the promise of the drug. Initially unable to use its back legs, the ‘after’ video shows the mouse walking around normally again.
“It’s the first time in 17 years that it’s happened; you add the drug and you get clinical significance immediately,” said Buttigieg of his years doing research. “The drug seems to be working immediately.”
Buttigieg and Kisheev are presenting their study at Bushwakker Brew Pub’s monthly Health Science Pub night next Thursday.
They’ll be showing the before and after videos, talking about how the principles of the Trojan horse myth have inspired the new drug and about the animal testing involved in the study.
Kisheev hopes people will come with an open mind.
“Unfortunately that is really the only way that we can do this kind of research,” she said. “You can’t really go far with testing things in a petri dish and you can’t really jump to a person.”
Kisheev said the university follows extremely strict animal testing rules, and that the animals are not allowed to be in pain. If something happens to cause pain, the animal is put down right away.
“Animal research is very much a privilege, not a right,” emphasized Buttigieg, adding that the only side effects noted in the mice so far is that they’re walking again.
The lab operates under federal, provincial and university level supervision and a veterinarian visits the lab almost every day to check in on the animals, which are treated in the most minimally invasive
ways, housed together in safe and comfortable environments and provided with stimulation, said Buttigieg.
Despite a promising start to the study, which both Buttigieg and Kisheev are optimistic could one day lead to a cure for MS, Buttigieg said funding is an obstacle they must overcome in order take next steps.
He said there have been cutbacks for research funding at federal and provincial levels, but they are applying for a couple of grants through the MS Society to try and continue their work.
“Right now there’s still a lot of questions to be answered,” said Kisheev.
Dosage, route of administration, frequency of treatment and identifying what stage of the disease is the most effective time for treatment, are all things that need to be determined with further research.
“We would like to think of it as a cure because it does eliminate the diseased immune cells,” she said. “So potentially, if we’re able to go further with it we would like to see if we can completely clear them out and allow for the restoration of the immune system.”
“That would mean a lot to a lot of people,” she said.
Having only treated acute MS in the mice, Buttigieg is anxious to see what the drug would do for those who’ve suffered from the disease for longer periods of time.
“What I sort of foresee for the next stage for people who have had it for a longer period of time, is that we destroy the immune system that’s defective and then we can use stem cells now to repair what’s lost,” he said.
To learn more, check out the Health Science Pub which begins at 7 p.m. on Sept. 20 in Bushwakker’s Arizona Room. The room opens at 5 p.m. and quite often is full by 6 p.m. according to organizers.
Basically what happens is the immune cells start to attack oneself and they degrade the myelin protein that is coating neuronal axons.