Existing Anti-Malaria Drugs could be a Potential Rx for Parkinson’s disease

Currently, there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, which affects 10 million people worldwide. Prof Kwang-Soo Kim from McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School and A/Prof Yoon Ho Sup from NTU’s School of Biological Sciences, showed that by activating Nurr1, a class of proteins found in the brain, it protects the brain’s ability to generate dopamine neurons, for dopamine products for motor control and movement of muscles in the body.

In lab tests, the scientists found that by activating Nurr1, the rats which had Parkinson’s disease appeared to improve in their behaviour and showed no signs of suffering from the disease. Assoc Prof Yoon said the team had screened about 1000 FDA-approved drugs before they found 2 common anti-malaria drugs which worked: Chloroquine and Amodiaquine.

“Our research also shows that existing drugs can be repurposed to treat other diseases and once several potential drugs are found, we can redesign them to be more effective in combating their targeted diseases while reducing the side effects.”

“Despite great efforts from pharmaceutical companies and academia, no one has managed to find a molecule which can directly bind to it and activate it, except for us.” They also aim to design better drugs for the disease by modifying Chloroquine and Amodiaquine. http://media.ntu.edu.sg/NewsReleases/Pages/newsdetail.aspx?news=eef2319b-7663-46a7-9bb2-1b165acc5b2f