Why aren’t new therapies for treating swine flu (and other diseases?) available?

Nano Chem Report
Blogging on nanomedicine, dendrimers and nanolaw since January 2009

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Anil Diwan, the founder of Nanoviricides at a conference. He’d developed some interesting technology for drug delivery and had formed a company to commercialize it: Nanoviricides (www.nanoviricides.com). I found the technology compelling enough to even buy some stock in the company, but the commercialization process is clearly long and hard.

What they’ve developed is termed a nanoviricide, which consists of two components. The first component is a ligand designed to bind specifically to a target surface. These ligands can be altered to bind to a variety of different viruses. The second component is a polymer nanoparticle. Once the ligand binds to the virus, the polymer then flows around the virus. This effectively “slimes” the virus, and inactivates it. The energetics of causing the polymer to flow around the virus are probably driven by entropy, but I’m not sure it’s been well studied/modeled. The advantage of this technology over a lot of competing technologies is that the ligand has to only bind to the virus- the actual binding site isn’t that critical. In contrast, most drugs designed to interfere with viruses do so by blocking the entry of the virus into a cell or by attacking the virus in a specific fashion – such as replication. Most AIDS drugs work this way. Unfortunately, these drugs can fail because the virus uses a variety of ways to gain entry into a cell- hence the need for things like an AIDS cocktail. What this means is that it’s not enough for most drugs to just bind to the surface of the virus- they have to get to the right spot on the virus to be effective. Nanoviricides compound is different since the purpose of the ligand is merely to recognize a virus and bind to it- the polymer does the rest. It’s a much more tractable problem.

Why would it be nice to have such a drug to be widely available? Well, the vaccine approach has proven to be very effective at controlling many of the infectious diseases that used to take an enormous toll on human life such as smallpox, polio, rubella, etc. Unfortunately, there are some diseases such as AIDS where it’s been very hard to develop a vaccine, even after decades of effort. The other problem is that vaccines generally don’t do a lot if you’ve already been infected with the disease. Once you’ve been infected, generally the infection has to run its course.

Most therapeutic approaches utilize the body’s immune system in some fashion. The nanoviricide is actually a very different approach since it really operates largely independently of normal immune processes by providing an additional way to inactivate viruses. Even people with compromised immune systems should be able to tolerate a nanoviricide, and once a virus has been “slimed” it’s eventually recognized as a foreign body and excreted.

A nanoviricide for swine flu would be pretty useful about now. It would be a good second line of defense for people who weren’t vaccinated for whatever reason. Some vaccines are not well tolerated in the general population and it may not be practical to vaccinate the entire population. If there would be a reasonable alternative therapy to a vaccine, the risks of not being vaccinated are much more acceptable. While a nanoviricide would not confer long lasting immunity from the disease, since the outbreaks of swine flu are so rare, this may not be a significant drawback. It would certainly reduce the mortality of the disease and likely lower the costs of treatment by shortening the time course of the illness and the amount of supportive care necessary.

It’s generally government entities that purchase vaccines, but this process has been a troubled endeavor as of late. While it’s clear that the Obama administration has lots on its plate right now, a better treatment for people who do get infected with swine flu would certainly reduce some public anxiety. It’s probably too late to manufacture a nanoviricide in quantity to have an effect on this outbreak of swine flu, but it should be possible to have something in hand for the next one.

Sam Brauer

Nanotech Plus, LLC

Stamford, CT USA

www.nanotechplus.net

(203) 968-8899

Posted by Sam Brauer- Nanotech Plus LLC at 1:11 PM

Source

Dr. Henry Niman talks Swine Flu

VIDEO

Niman - We are at Level 6, in effect - the WHO going to 4 from 3 is equivalent to going from 3 to 6. So we are up to our necks in it. Will the summer ahead be like 1918 and mild with few deaths? Probably. Will our deaths occur in the fall like in 1918? Could be - that was the 1918 model.

For my part - will NNVC have any part at all, large or small, in ameliorating this catastrophe at hand?? From what I've heard so far I have my doubts.

NanoViricides, Inc. Says Flu-Cide Drug Designed to Destroy All Influenza A Viruses Including Swine and Bird Flu

Already shown to be effective against diverse influenza subtypes such as H1N1 and different clades of H5N1

On Monday April 27, 2009, 7:00 am EDT

Source

NANOVIRICIDES PIPELINE

Click pic to enlarge

• The potential domestic market for an effective drug against all viral infections of the external eye is variously estimated to be from $500M to billions of dollars.

Source

Calcutta brain shows nano test to fight cancer

Sudipta Basu New Delhi, April 20: A young biochemist, an alumnus of Presidency College, Calcutta, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has demonstrated a potentially novel way of combating diverse cancers. Sudipta Basu, a post-doctoral researcher at the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology division, has designed tiny particles to ferry molecules that interfere with cancer mechanisms and make tumours respond better to chemotherapy. In a series of laboratory and animal studies, Basu and his colleagues led by another Indian, Shiladitya Sengupta, have shown that this new strategy can kill lung cancer and skin cancer cells in the laboratory and block the growth of skin tumours in mice. Their findings are encouraging enough for them to suggest that their technique may emerge as a previously untested route for cancer treatment. The researchers engineered nanoparticles — particles so tiny that their sizes are measured in billionths of a metre — in such a way as to impart them with a stealth feature to evade the human immune system, but selectively seek out tumours. They used these nanoparticles to deliver special molecules that suppress the activity of an enzyme called MAPK which has been implicated in several cancers in humans, including colon, pancreatic, liver and lung cancers. “This enzyme is also involved in normal functions of the body,” said Sengupta. “The key challenge was to target abnormally-activated enzyme selectively inside cancer cells. We’ve done this with these stealth nanoparticles,” he told The Telegraph. The findings appeared today in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Post-doctoral fellow Basu, who had graduated from Presidency College and completed a Masters from IIT Kanpur, also presented the work today at a conference in Denver. Basu said some doctors have expressed an interest in trying out the technique, especially against liver cancer. In their studies on mice, the nanoparticles not only blocked the growth of skin tumours called melonomas, but also enhanced the anti-tumour efficacy of an anti-cancer drug called cisplatin. Sengupta cautioned that drugs that target the MAPK enzyme mechanism are still under clinical trials so human trials combining anti-MAPK molecules and the nanoparticle approach could be a few years away. “The future lies in using innovatively designed complex nanoparticles that will specifically home into tumours and deploy drugs that rectify abnormal cancer generating signals,” said Raghunath Mashelkar, former director general of India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, who was a visiting professor at the Harvard-MIT HST division in 2007 when the project was conceived. Sengupta, who heads the Laboratory for Nanomedicine at the HST division has cofounded a company, Cerulean Pharmaceuticals, which is trying to develop nanomedicines for cancer. Sengupta had studied at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and the University of Cambridge, before joining MIT in 2001, where he is now assistant professor and head of laboratory of nanomedicine. “The field of cancer chemotherapy is heading towards targeted treatment that will shut down cancer-causing pathways,” Sengupta said. “In another 5 to 10 years, this would be the mainline approach to treating cancer.” Source

Pioneering medical nanotechnology offers new cancer breakthrough hope

Posted on 17 Apr 2009
University of Leicester

A multi-disciplinary team of scientists from the University of Leicester could be potentially paving the way for the development of a powerful new strategy for both the early diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.

The research is to use cutting edge nanotechnology to identify a pioneering treatment which could also be applied to other aggressive cancers.

The University of Leicester researchers say that microscopic (5-100 nm) magnetic nanoparticles could be applied in the sensitive diagnosis and effective treatment of prostate cancer. This follows breakthrough nanotechnology research at the University.

Dr Wu Su, of the Department of Chemistry, has been awarded a grant worth £321 K. This is one of only ten Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in the Life Sciences Interface area given this year by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This is the first EPSRC postdoctoral research fellowship awarded to the University of Leicester. The highly prestigious award will allow a multi-disciplinary research team to design high-performance magnetic nanoparticles. The team consists of researchers from the University of Leicester departments of Chemistry, Physics, Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine and Cardiovascular Sciences.

High-performance magnetic nanoparticles act as probes that show up (using Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and kill (by hyperthermia) tumour cells at a much earlier stage than conventional methods.

The pioneering technology, developed at the University of Leicester, is focused on the development of a new type of magnetic nanoparticle in which the magnetic performance is increase by a factor of ten. Targeting these magnetic nanoparticles to unique cell surface receptors present on the prostate tumour cell surface will enable efficient and specific delivery to prostate cancer cells. The approach is general and it is envisaged that these systems could be applied to other types of aggressive cancers [liver, breast, colon] in which early diagnosis and treatment is essential for recovery. Dr Su said this technology requires a multidisciplinary approach: “Prostate cancer cure rates are predicated on early diagnosis and treatment. The technology that we are developing offers the potential of both the identification and treatment of prostate cancer in a highly selective manner.”

Successful implementation of this technology would provide significant welfare benefits for patients [reducing the need for surgical removal of the prostate] and significant cost benefits for the UK health-care system.

Source