For ages, man has been dependent on medicines for curing most kind of diseases. The most used pills around the world are painkillers. But the fault with these was few had adverse side effects like blood thinning and effects on other organs. Finally, researchers have found a solution to this.
The Researchers of Universitatsmedizin in Berlin have found a new way to develop medicines, which has been published in the Journal of Science. The researcher made use of calculated simulation to analyze the interaction between the opioids receptors, the cell’s docking site for the medicine. When the prototypes were used on animal models, the painkillers showed the desired result where healthy tissues remained unaffected. This suggests that the severe side effects the medicines showed previously can be avoided.
Opioids are, in a literal sense a strong type of pain killers. They help in the treatment of issues related to tissue damage and inflammation. These may be a result of surgery, arthritis, nerve damage or even cancer. Severe side effects include drowsiness, nausea, constipation and dependence and, in some cases, respiratory arrest.
Dr. Cristoph Stein, Head of the Department of Anesthesiology and Surgical Critical Care Medicine on Campus Benjamin Franklin, explained: “By analyzing drug-opioid receptor interactions in damaged tissues, as opposed to healthy tissues, we were hoping to provide useful information for the design of new painkillers without harmful side effects.”
Dr. Viola Spahn and Dr. Giovanna Del Vecchio, the initial study researchers and authors said, “In contrast to conventional opioids, our NFEPP-prototype appears to only bind to, and activate opioid receptors in an acidic environment. This means it produces pain relief only in injured tissues, and without causing respiratory depression, drowsiness, the risk of dependency, or constipation.”
The researchers were able to analyze the existing medicine and separate morphine-like molecules and analyzed their relation with the opioid receptors. They identified a mechanism to produce pain relief only to the desired target tissues that are affected by inflammation. This will improve the quality of life and medicine usage. In conclusion, the authors said, “We were able to show that the protonation of drugs is a key requirement for the activation of opioid receptors.”
These findings which also apply to other types of pain may even find application in other areas of receptor research. This helps in benefiting of drug formality and help building tolerance which is not limited to painkillers and also includes other drugs.
