sea snail key to future pain relief

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Sea Snail Key To Future Of Pain ReliefMain Category: Pain /

Anesthetics News<http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/sections/pain/>

Article Date: 25 Dec 2006 - 20:00 PST

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Unique research at The University of Queensland could revolutionise the

treatment of pain relief - thanks to a humble sea snail.

Dr Ekberg, a Research Fellow with UQ's School of Biomedical Sciences,

has studied a toxin produced by a marine snail found on the Great Barrier

Reef, which has the ability to precisely target chronic pain without severe

side-effects.

" Chronic pain can be caused by an initial injury that affects the nerves, or

conditions such as diabetes and arthritis, " Dr Ekberg said.

" The problem with current drugs, such as morphine, is that they sometimes

offer only marginal relief and come coupled with lots of problems with

tolerance and side-effects.

" Our research show that a natural product, a conotoxin from the marine snail

Conus marmoreus, produces pain relief without apparent side-effects in

animal models of chronic pain. "

The study, done with colleagues Professor in the School of

Biomedical Sciences, Dr at UQ's Institute for Molecular

Bioscience and Professor Mac Christie at the University of Sydney, was

recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr Ekberg said with approximately one in five Australians will suffer from

chronic pain at some point in their life the potential benefit of this

research could be enormous.

She said sufferers of chronic pain can have the added problem of being

diagnosed with no reason for the pain.

" The patient experiences severe pain because their nerve cells that are

responsible for pain transmission are overactive, " she said.

" This is primarily due to abnormal activity of voltage-gated sodium channels

in the nerve cells.

" Conventional drugs, such as local anaesthetics, block all types of sodium

channels, causing severe side-effects.

" Our toxin only blocks a specific channel - the first time a toxin like this

has been shown to work - therefore providing pain relief without severe

side-effects. "

Dr Ekberg said it would be a number of years before such a treatment would

be commercially available.

Originally from Sweden, Dr Ekberg came to UQ to complete her Honours in

Biomedical Sciences and stayed to complete a PhD, from which this research

stemmed, under the supervision of Professor and Associate

Professor Phil Poronnik.

Dr Ekberg said she has since remained at UQ because of a combination of

high-class research and a wonderful environment.

For further information please go to:

The University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia <http://www.uq.edu.au/>

Source:

UQ News Online <http://www.uq.edu.au/news>

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