Tuesday, November 14, 2006

A New Target for Painkillers

Nov. 13, 2006 -- A brand new approach to treating severe nerve pain – by aiming drugs at a previously unrecognized molecular target – has been discovered by University of Utah scientists who study the venoms of deadly, sea-dwelling cone snails.

"We found a new way to treat a chronic and debilitating form of pain suffered by hundreds of millions of people on Earth," says J. Michael McIntosh, a University of Utah research professor of biology, and research director and professor in the Department of Psychiatry. "It is a previously unrecognized mechanism for treating pain."

The findings are being published the week of Nov. 13 in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study in rats found that cone snail toxins named RgIA and Vc1.1 can treat nerve hypersensitivity and pain by blocking a molecule in cells known as the "alpha9alpha10 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor."


http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=103106-1

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