Heart attack and ischemia, a new monoclonal antibody developed at the University of Trieste can help patients recover more easily
Millions of people around the world suffer from heart disease more or less serious. These are in fact the leading cause of death globally and the most expensive in terms of health care costs. L’heart attack is among the most traumatic events for the organism but from a research led by Serena Zacchigna, teacher of Molecular Biology at the University of Trieste and head of the laboratory of Biologia Cardiovascolare dell’International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) of Trieste, a new therapy arrives to reduce its long-term effects.
The study, carried out in collaboration with theUniversity of Zagreb, in Croatia, highlighted the potential of a new one monoclonal antibody to block fibrosis which limits the heart’s ability to pump blood and aids in the survival of heart muscle cells.
Heart attack and monoclonal antibody: “Still few biological drugs to treat cardiovascular diseases”
“The new biological therapies they are transforming oncological treatments or of hereditary diseases, while there are very few i biological drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases – he has declared Zacchigna all’Ansa – The vast majority of therapies approved to date are small chemical molecules that generally have a single target, such as blocking the action of an enzyme or receptor. “The research in particular focused on a family of proteins called Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMPs) to understand the evolution of fibrosis after aischemia.
“On the contrary, – continues the expert – i biological drugs (recombinant proteins, gene therapy products and cell therapy) reproduce elements that normally exist in our tissues and therefore have the potential to interfere with complex therapy mechanisms. However, they are more difficult to prepare and use, as well as more expensive, and therefore complicated to translate from experimental studies to patients “.