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Australian researchers funded by the National Heart Foundation are a step closer to a safer and more effective way to treat heart attack and stroke via nanotechnology.
The research jointly lead by Professor Christoph Hagemeyer, Head of the Vascular Biotechnology Laboratory at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute and Professor Frank Caruso, an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Melbourne, was published today in the leading journal Advanced Materials.
Professor Hagemeyer said this latest step offers a revolutionary difference between the current treatments for blood clots and what might be possible in the future.
This life saving treatment could be administered by paramedics in emergency situations without the need for specialised equipment as is currently the case.
"We've created a nanocapsule that contains a clot-busting drug. The drug-loaded nanocapsule is coated with an antibody that specifically targets activated platelets, the cells that form blood clots," Professor Hagemeyer said.
"Once located at the site of the blood clot, thrombin (a molecule at the centre of the clotting process) breaks open the outer layer of the nanocapsule, releasing the clot-busting drug. We are effectively hijacking the blood clotting system to initiate the removal of the blockage in the blood vessel," he said.
Professor Frank Caruso from the Melbourne School of Engineering said the targeted drug with its novel delivery method can potentially offer a safer alternative with fewer side effects for people suffering a heart attack or stroke.
"Up to 55,000 Australians experience a heart attack or suffer a stroke every year."
"About half of the people who need a clot-busting drug can't use the current treatments because the risk of serious bleeding is too high," he said.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Thursday August 06 2015, @04:53AM
Color me completely unconvinced. Clots get a lot of bad press. They can be bad, sure, but lay people don't usually realize how essential this process is.
Symptoms sound like a heart attack? That could be any of: myocardial infarction (the classic heart attack), pulmonary embolism, gastric reflux, pancreatitis, aortic dissection, pericardial tamponade, aortic injury, and others.
Some of those will be saved by a clot buster. Some of those depend on the body's clotting process, which is the only reason you aren't dead yet (like anything to do with the aorta). Without imaging there is no way to know who you will kill and who you will save.
If that wasn't enough, symptoms sound like a stroke? Guess what, there are - broadly - two kinds: thromboembolic and hemorrhagic. The former will respond to clot busters administered quickly... but if you have a bleed in the brain and get a clot buster, you will almost certainly die. There is no way to know which until you get a noncontrast CT.
They seem to be billing this as better for cases with occult bleeding in other places. So for use after recent surgery, with a GI bleed / ulcer, etc. However, those bleeds also depend on clotting and will have activated thrombin present... so I'm unconvinced by a single one of their claims. Sounds like a neat toy without a shred of human testing the university PR department got hold of and ran with to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @03:57PM
You are right that the targeting will still hit any site where clotting is occurring. This would only seem useful if high doses of anti-clotting drugs cause other side effects at other sites.
The antibody targeting would probably be better if it was tissue-specific. A neurotransmitter-triggered release of the drug to avoid an out of control GI bleed while stopping a brain clot.
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Friday August 07 2015, @02:36AM
Wouldn't an EKG be able to identify whether it's a myocardial infarction or not?