Projektbeschreibung
Blaues Licht stoppt fehlerhafte Neuronen, die falsche Schmerzsignale aussenden
Alle Personen, die mit chronischen Schmerzen leben – also rund ein Fünftel der Weltbevölkerung – kennen die damit verbundenen körperlichen Auswirkungen und schweren Komplikationen, die unter anderem Depressionen, Angststörungen und Schlafprobleme beinhalten sowie Folgen für die persönlichen und beruflichen Beziehungen und sogar für die wirtschaftliche Stabilität haben. Neuropathische Schmerzen sind chronische Schmerzen, die von beschädigten Nerven ausgehen, die falsche Signale an die Schmerzzentren des Gehirns senden. Die Nervensignalübertragung umfasst eine Reihe von elektrischen und chemischen Signalen, die auf die inhibitorische Wirkung einströmender Kaliumionen zurückzuführen sind. Das EU-finanzierte Projekt BREAK zielt mit einem neuartigen injizierbaren Schmerzmittel auf die Kaliumkanäle in Neuronen ab. Die Blockierung lokaler Neuronen, die dem Gehirn Schmerz signalisieren, könnte den neuropathischen Schmerz von Millionen Menschen weltweit lindern.
Ziel
Chronic pain (CP) is a medical condition affecting around 20% of adults in Europe, characterised by an abnormal duration of pain (> 12 weeks) originally initiated by a trauma or illness. Despite significant progress, CP remains extremely hard to treat, with only one-third to two-thirds of patients reporting adequate some pain relief. This situation is even worse for neuropathic pain (NP), a specific class of CP affecting 8% of global population and whose origin mostly depend on peripheral or central nervous damage or disorder, which leads the brain to interpret as pain normally non painful stimuli. NP is difficult to treat due to the large number of entities involved (cells, genes and proteins working in synergy), which makes it hard to rapidly diagnose the exact cause of pain. Drugs targeting the central nervous system (e.g. antidepressants and opioids) provide only partial pain relief and are nonspecific, also causing side effects like addiction, and nausea, thus restraining their adoption for prolonged treatments.
BREAK is the first non-invasive inhibitory optogenetic tool specifically designed for NP treatment, with potential application to the whole spectrum of CP. BREAK is composed of a drug and an optical device. The protein BLINK2 is injected in the painful area using a genetically engineered virus, and respond to a specific blue light by silencing the addressed neuron. The lamp can be kept at some distance (cm) from the skin and no implant is required. Just some minutes of treatment results in hours of pain relief, making the invasiveness of BREAK far lower than actually existing solution.
A first version of BREAK has already demonstrated in in-vivo experiments on rats. During this project we plan to further develop the treatment and explore its commercial potential. In particular, leveraging from the experience of different partners, we will constitute a fruitful stakeholder network, including Academic centers, hospitals, pharma companies and investor
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantGastgebende Einrichtung
20122 Milano
Italien