The drug proved successful in tackling autism-like symptoms in mice

Mar 14, 2013 12:34 GMT  ·  By

This past March 13, a team of researchers working with the University of California made it public news that they had succeeded in tackling autism-like symptoms in mice with the help of a drug known as suramin.

Following their carrying this clinical trial on animals, the scientists hope to test the drug on children and verify their theory that suramin can in fact be used to treat this medical condition.

Despite their deciding to use this drug in order to alleviate the symptoms of autism, the researchers who embarked on this project did not develop suramin themselves.

Thus, as explained on the official website for the University of California, the drug has for quite some time now been used to treat sleeping sickness in Africa.

As these scientists came to understand, suramin can also help improve on some of the alleged underlying causes of autism: faulty brain connections, cell-to-cell signaling, and metabolic effects.

All in all, it is being said that this drug has managed to normalize a total of 17 different types of abnormalities that are commonly linked to autism.

“Our (cell danger) theory suggests that autism happens because cells get stuck in a defensive metabolic mode and fail to talk to each other normally, which can interfere with brain development and function,” Robert Naviaux, MD, PhD, commented with respect to this clinical study on mice.

“We used a class of drugs that has been around for almost a century to treat other diseases to block the ‘danger’ signal in a mouse model, allowing cells to return to normal metabolism and restore cell communication,” he went on to add.

Robert Naviaux and his colleagues are confident that they will be able to roll out a clinical study on human patients prior to the end of this year.

Due to the fact that this research into the possibility of using suramin to treat autism is still in its early days, this first clinical trial on children is expected to be a fairly small-scale one.

The experiments are to be carried out at the Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Centre at the University of California in San Diego.

“Of course, correcting abnormalities in a mouse is a long way from a cure for humans, but we are encouraged enough to test this approach in a small clinical trial of children with autism spectrum disorder in the coming year.”

“This trial is still in the early stages of development. We think this approach – called antipurinergic therapy or APT – offers a fresh and exciting new path that could lead to development of a new class of drugs to treat autism,” Robert Naviaux wished to emphasize.