Uni finds way to help treatment of 6,000 diseases
RESPONSE TO DNA DRUGS PREDICTED
A major breakthrough in the treatment of cancer, cystic fibrosis and 6,000 other inherited conditions has been made in the North East.
Researchers at Northumbria University have come up with a way of predicting how patients respond to DNA drugs used to treat them which could cut health bills by millions of pounds.
Although these types of drugs can be highly effective, they are expensive - most cost over £100,000 and do not work on all patients.
The findings could now lead to more targeted and personalised treatment for patients using them so that they can be prescribed safely and with greater confidence that they will work.
Dr Sterghios A. Moschos, associate professor of cellular and molecular sciences at Northumbria University, led the research.
He said: “This is a real breakthrough in bringing these types of gene therapies faster to patients, making them at the same time safer and more effective. “At the moment there is no way of knowing which drug will work on which patient, other than essentially trial and error, and time. “Not only is this costly and risky for the drugs companies, and those paying for the drug, it can also be a lengthy process for patients, with a risk of the treatment not working.” The technique could also have a significant impact on drug development as companies and doctors could know in advance which patients to select for clinical trials, with greater confidence that the drugs will work.
This also means clinical trials will be more likely to be successful, bringing new drugs faster to patients.
Similarly, after new drugs are approved, doctors will be able to carry out a simple test, to prescribe them safely and with confidence that they will work.
Dr Moschos said: “The next steps are to look at how the technique can be used as a single predictive test for research and clinical use, enabling us to predict which patients might respond to certain types of gene therapies, and by how much, whether they are experimental or approved.
“It may also have a significant role to play in the future for a new type of gene therapy called gene editing. Clinical trials on gene editing are about to start in the US to cut out diseased genes from patients and replace them with healthy one.”
This is a real breakthrough in bringing these types of gene therapies faster to patients Dr Sterghios Moschos