biotech
Rapamycin May Protect Heart Against Tissue Damage
Filed in archive Drugs, Vaccines and Therapeutics , Microbiology by ruth on July 7, 2006
Rapamycin May Protect Heart Against Tissue Damage
Rapamycin (also called sirolimus, marketed as Rapamune® by Wyeth) is a peptide produced by Streptomyces hygroscopicus, originally developed as an antibiotic, but is more commonly used as an immunosuppresant to prevent rejection in organ transplantation. Researchers for the Virginia Commonwealth University report yet a novel use for this compound.
In the July issue of the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, the official publication of the International Society for Heart Research, researchers demonstrated for the first time that pretreatment with a clinically relevant dose of rapamycin induces a protective effect against heart attack injury and reduces programmed cell death.

"Rapamycin may one day be beneficial as a potential therapeutic strategy to limit cell death caused by ischemia or reperfusion injury, and possibly long-term prevention of ventricular remodeling - the changes in size, shape and function that may occur to the left ventricle of the heart," said Rakesh C. Kukreja, Ph.D., professor of medicine and Eric Lipman Chair of Cardiology at VCU. Kukreja is lead author of the study.

Researchers also allude to the potential use of rapamycin to coat stents used to treat artery blockage.

For more details on how rapamycin works, refer to the VCU News.

Permalink: Rapamycin May Protect Heart Against Tissue Damage
Tags: antibiotic  cardiovascular  biotech  rapamycin  heart  rapamycin+protect  tissue+damage  against+tissue 
Trackback: http://publish.creative-weblogging.com/publish/mt-tb.pl/28127
img Addthis img Ask img Blinklist img del.icio.us img Digg img Fark img Facebook img Google img Lycos img Ma.gnolia Add this page to Mister Wong Mr Wong img Netscape img Netvousz img Newsvine img Reddit img StumbleUpon img Slashdot img Tailrank img Technorati img Wink img Yahoo

Vote for Rapamycin May Protect Heart Against Tissue Damage:

  • Currently 8.67/10
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
Rating: 8.67 out of 3 vote(s) cast.
 
Subscribe
Share It
Popular posts from our other blogs:
RSSrss
See all blog subscribe options
Google google
What is RSS?
Yahoo! yahoo
Addthis Subscribe using any feed reader!
Bloglines Bloglines
Newsletter

TwitterFollow us on Twitter!