A successful drug trial for Parkinson’s has improved patient symptoms and stopped the progression of the disease, according to researchers in Australia, as reported in June 2019.
The drug, called CuATSM, targets affected brain cells through a copper capsule, taken orally, which is taken three times daily by patients over the course of six months. Developed in Victoria at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, in conjunction with the University of Melbourne’s Bio21 Institute, with the trial conducted by the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the drug had also proven effective in trials with motor neurone disease patients, the results of which were released in January 2019.
A project in 2012 had involved the institute researchers in developing a compound to treat Alzheimer’s disease. In the course of this project, they made a discovery that the drug also worked to treat other neurodegenerative disorders.
In these sorts of trials, the brain’s dopamine levels are poisoned in test animals – in this case, rats. The drug is given to the animal ‘before’ the poisoning to show that it works to prevent it. The difference with CuATSM was that it was also effective in the test rats that were fed the drug ‘after’ the poisoning.
About Parkinson’s
Some of the features of Parkinson’s disease are given below:
- Affects one in 500 people.
- Causes muscle stiffness, slowness of movement, tremors, sleep disturbance, chronic fatigue, an impaired quality of life, and can lead to severe disability.
- Fastest growing neurological condition in the world.
- A progressive neurological condition which destroy cells in the part of the brain that controls movement; diminishes supplies of dopamine due to the death of nerve cells.
- Currently there is no cure and no way of stopping the progression of the disease.