Description:
Reference #: 01544
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for Luteolin for treatment of neuromuscular movement disorder dystonia 16 (DYT16)
Background:
DYT16 is a rare movement disorder, so the number of patients worldwide is small. However, Alzheimer's disease, Down syndrome are very prevalent and large numbers of people are affected. Alzheimer’s: 5.5 million in USA and 24 million worldwide. Down syndrome: in USA 83,000 children had DS in 2002. Numbers are huge.
Invention Description:
PKR is a protein kinase that is activated by association with another protein, PACT. PACT binds to PKR in response to cellular stress and activates it. When PKR activation is transient, it helps the cells recover from stress, but when PKR activation is prolonged, cells cannot recover and undergo programmed cell death. Dystonia 16 (DYT16) is a movement disorder caused by mutations in PACT that make it hyperactivate PKR causing excessive cell damage. My drug innovation disrupts the interaction between PACT and PKR to restore transient PKR activation and prevent cell death. Thus, it is potentially a useful drug for treatment of DYT16.
Potential Applications:
The technology be potentially used to treat the movement disorder dystonia 16 (DYT16) and possibly other forms of dystonia. It can also be potentially used to treat or slow the progression of other neurodegenerative diseases including but not limiting to Alzheimer's disease. In addition, it may be useful as a drug to improve cognitive disabilities observed in Down syndrome. In addition, veterans that experience traumatic brain or spinal cord injuries develop dystonia years after the initial injury (injury-induced dystonia). Similarly, veterans as well as civilians taking antipsychotic drugs for anxiety, PTSD, depression develop dystonia as a side effect (drug-induced dystonia). Our results also indicate that antipsychotic drugs induce PKR activation and thus luteolin may also be beneficial if taken in combination with antipsychotic drugs and prevent drug-induced dystonia.
Advantages and Benefits:
These are my original results, No one else has thought of this and the drug is a natural flavonoid, available over the counter.