WAY TO SWITCH OFF PAIN COULD HALT MISERY FOR MILLIONS
SCIENTISTS could soon alter pain genes and improve life for millions of long-term sufferers.
A new treatment changes the DNA of patients by silencing the gene that sends pain signals through the spine to the brain.
Ana Moreno, the CEO of Navega Therapeutics, the US company behind the technique, said: “You can either activate or repress a gene of interest, without creating permanent changes.
“So we can repress the gene that’s known to cause sensitivity to pain.”
Early studies have been successfully conducted on mice with researchers hoping to begin human trials next year and hopefully get approval for use within five years.
Reversed
The novel treatment was created in response to the opioid epidemic which meant highly addictive painkillers were being prescribed to longterm pain sufferers, who often die from an overdose.
This new “non-addictive” approach uses a high-precision gene-editing technique called CRISPR – Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats – which has mainly been used to combat rare hereditary diseases.
Last month researchers announced they had reversed a patient’s sickle cell anaemia using this method.
CRISPR is a natural defence mechanism found in bacteria which protects cells by destroying abnormal DNA. In this new life-saving technique, the CRISPR-editing tool is placed inside a harmless virus, allowing scientists to make precision edits to any DNA. These virus particles are then injected into the spine, much like an epidural, after which they enter neuron cells.
Once inside a cell, the CRISPR tool is released and silences the pain gene.
The mice in the preliminary studies were given chemotherapy, which is often painful for cancer patients.
Dr Moreno said: “One of the main reasons why cancer patients stop life-saving chemotherapy is they are in a lot of pain from it.”
Morphine is commonly given to cancer patients to ease the agony but this can leave them tired and unable to carry out daily tasks.
Suppressing this pain gene – called SCN9A – could be used as an alternative to morphine, helping cancer patients stay on chemotherapy longer.
The effect may last six months to a year in humans, said co-founder Dr Fernando Aleman, but he admitted he could not be 100 per cent sure yet.
Research suggests up to 28 million adults in the UK are affected by chronic pain, which is pain that lasts for more than three months.
But Dr Aleman added: “So far, we cannot remove pain completely with our technology, in mice at least.”