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Common Antibiotic Can Act As An ‘Off Switch’ For Parkinson’s Therapy

by Aruna on  August 31, 2009 at 10:07 AM Research News
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Common Antibiotic Can Act As An ‘Off Switch’ For Parkinson’s Therapy
According to a study on rats conducted by University of Florida researchers, a common antibiotic can act as an ‘off switch’ for a gene therapy that is being developed for Parkinson's disease.


The findings of the study have explained how new, therapeutic genes that have been irrevocably delivered to the human brain to treat Parkinson's can be controlled if the genes unexpectedly start causing problems.

Meanwhile, in a review of Parkinson treatments, the researchers have said that earlier experiments using growth factors - naturally occurring substances that cause cells to grow and divide - to rescue dying brain cells may have failed because they occurred too late in the course of the disease.

Taken together, the findings have indicated that gene therapy to enable the brain to retain its ability to produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter that falls in critically short supply in Parkinson's patients, could be safely attempted during earlier stages of the disease with an added likelihood of success.

"We have worked every day for 10 years to design a construct to the gene delivery vector that enhances the safety profile of gene transfer for Parkinson's disease," said Ronald Mandel, a professor of neuroscience at UF.

He added: "With that added measure of safety, we believe we can intervene with gene transfer in patients at earlier stages of the disease. We strongly believe that trials to save dopamine-producing connections in patients with Parkinson's disease have failed because the therapy went into patients who were in the late stages of the disease and who had too few remaining dopamine-producing connections."

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