New stroke treatments are being develop

Research is being done at the University of Tennessee Health Science Centre to develop a new method of treating ischemic stroke, the leading cause of death in the world.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a division of the National Institutes of Health, provided a translational grant for the study in the amount of $1,155,000 USD. Jiawang Liu, PhD, head of the Medicinal Chemistry center at UTHSC, and Jianxiong Jiang, PhD, assistant professor in the departments of pharmaceutical sciences and anatomy and neurobiology, are the principal investigators. Professor of neurology Thaddeus S. Nowak, PhD, provides the study with knowledge of stroke models.

Approximately 87% of acute stroke cases are ischemic strokes. Current ischemic stroke therapies, such as intravenous thrombolytic therapy and mechanical thrombectomy, have possible side effects and must be given within a specific time frame in order to be successful, which restricts the number of patients who may get them. Furthermore, even those who survive therapy risk developing lifelong problems.

There is an urgent need to discover a new therapy for this illness, according to Dr. Jiang. "The current treatment options for ischemic stroke are very limited," he stated. "The neuronal injury brought on by the stroke can result in long-term disabilities in even the patients who survive." The researchers will work to develop novel drug-like antagonists for the prostaglandin receptor EP2, an emerging therapeutic target for brain ischemia-promoted neuroinflammation.

Previous work led by Lexiao Li, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jiang’s lab, validated the feasibility of pharmacologically targeting EP2 in animal models. The team believes this safer and more effective treatment could reduce inflammation and provide protection for neurons after an ischemic stroke. The potential new treatment would have a wider therapeutic window, so it would apply to more patients, while improving behavioral outcomes and reducing long-term disabilities.

“I have a family history of this disease. My father and my grandmother both had ischemic stroke before they died, so that was kind of motivation for me to develop a new treatment for this disease,” Dr. Jiang said.