Researchers Develop Drug To Help The Healing Process By Mimicking Inflammation

If you’ve ever wondered why during an injury, certain parts of our bodies become inflamed, it is because this is our body’s natural response. The idea is that the swelling helps increase blood flow to an area to help with the healing process, and this is a concept that researchers have worked on to create a drug that can help improve the healing process.

The drug is known as SDV1a which can be injected all over the body. When injected, the drug mimics the signals of inflammation to that particular area, which will then lure stem cells to the area to promote healing without the side effects of inflammation. In their tests with mice with the neurodegenerative Sandhoff disease, they found that when the drug was injected into the brains of the mice along with human neural stem cells, the treated mice stem cells were better able to migrate to where they were needed.

Apparently this resulted in the mice having a longer lifespan and delayed onset of symptoms associated with the disease. According to Evan Snyder, senior author of the study, he sees a lot of potential for the drug, especially with neurodegenerative disorders. “We are optimistic that this drug’s mechanism of action may potentially benefit a variety of neurodegenerative disorders, as well as non-neurological conditions such as heart disease, arthritis and even brain cancer.”

Of course, it might be a while before we see this treatment get approved for use on humans, but it is certainly an exciting development.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Medical
Tags: Health, Science