Approved tapeworm drug may offer babies protection from Zika
U.S. researchers have identified two groups of existing drug compounds that may protect against the devastating fetal effects of the Zika virus. One of those compounds, they detail in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat tapeworm.
In their analysis, researchers at Florida State
University (FSU), Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) focused on compounds that have the quickest path to
clinical use.
“This is a first step toward a therapeutic that can
stop transmission of this disease,” study author Hengli Tang, a
biological science professor at FSU, said in a news release.
One of the compound groups the group identified stops
the Zika virus from replicating, while the other would halt eradication
of fetal brain cells. Studies suggest Zika can cause microcephaly, a
condition wherein babies are born with partially formed heads, among
other possible birth defects.
"It's so dramatic and irreversible," Tang said in the
release. "The probability of Zika-induced microcephaly occurring
doesn't appear to be that high, but when it does, the damage is
horrible."
Researchers screened 6,000 compounds already approved
by the FDA or in the process of a clinical trial because they could be
made more readily available to patients with Zika.
“It takes years if not decades to develop a new
drug," Hongjun Song, a neurology professor at Johns Hopkins and the
director of the Stem Cell Program at the university’s Institute for Cell
Engineering, said in the release. "In this sort of global health
emergency, we don't have time. So instead of using new drugs, we chose
to screen existing drugs. In this way, we hope to create a therapy much
more quickly."
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