Potentially Safer, More Effective Clot-Buster on Horizon with Help from Mayfield Foundation
A year after receiving a $51,000 grant from the Mayfield Education & Research Foundation, Shahid Nimjee, MD, PhD, presented his progress at the Winter Clinics for Cranial & Spinal Surgery, a national gathering of neurosurgeons and advanced practice providers in Snowmass, Colorado. Dr. Nimjee, a neurosurgeon at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, has made great progress and we look forward to following his work.
Dr. Nimjee's study explores the ability of a novel RNA-based therapeutic (DTRI-031) to prevent and lyse an acute blood clot created at a controlled injury site in the carotid artery of dogs. Its efficacy is compared to tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA), the standard drug used for medical treatment of acute clot. tPA has the ability to dissolve an existing blood clot, but this action carries a known risk of hemorrhage. DTRI-031 is evaluated for its ability to provide the same clot-dissolving activity without risking hemorrhage.
The drug is evaluated in three settings: pretreatment prior to a controlled carotid injury to prevent clot formation; treatment after carotid injury to dissolve a clot; and treatment after carotid injury and attempted clot removal with a thrombectomy device to prevent re-formation of the clot. In each situation, DTRI-031 resulted in reduced clotting in the artery, enhanced flow through the artery, and no evidence of stroke or hemorrhage in the brain. tPA also showed some reduction in clot size and improvement of flow, but not to the degree as was achieved with the study drug.
The potential of DTRI-031 to dissolve or prevent occlusive blood clot in an artery has widespread utility in medicine, especially for stroke and heart attack treatment or prevention.
The Mayfield Foundation Award was one of five grants (three external, two internal) that allowed for large-animal DTRI-031 efficacy studies, which resulted in statistically significant improvement compared to rTPA treatment in a vascular injury model. Two additional external grants are now providing funding for DTRI-031 efficacy studies in a clinically relevant stroke model (MCAO, or middle cerebral artery occlusion). If this stepwise approach again results in the superiority of DTRI-031 over rTPA in MCAO, dosing experiments will begin immediately to establish administration protocol for phase I clinical trials.
Congratulations, Dr. Nimjee and best of luck for continued success and discovery!
For immediate release:
May 03, 2019
For more information contact:
Deborah Livingston
Development Director
Mayfield Education & Research Foundation
(513) 569-5277
dlivingston@mayfieldfoundation.org