New insights into treating heart attack and stroke

Assoc Prof Shaun Jackson, from the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases at Monash University, has won this year's Amgen Medical Research Award for the discovery and development of a new treatment for coronary heart disease and stroke.

In what is the culmination of over eight years of work, Jackson's team has identified a new class of anti-clotting drugs, the PI 3-kinase inhibitors, which act on a specific enzyme, PI 3-kinase p110.

Jackson's lab discovered that PI 3-kinase p110 is required for shear-activation of platelets, a process necessary for arterial blood clot (thrombus) formation.

"PI 3-kinase p110a was not previously known to play an important role in platelet function or in thrombus development," said Jackson. "We have now identified specific inhibitors of this enzyme which inhibit the formation of the 'sticky' contacts between the platelets and prevent thrombus formation.

Heart attack and stroke are leading health problems in Australia -- 48,700 coronary heart attack events and 40,000 to 48,000 stroke events are estimated to occur in Australia each year. Over 200 million people world-wide suffer from these diseases, which cause significant economic and health impacts.

Aspirin remains the preferred antithrombotic agent for treatment of these diseases, although it has relatively weak anti-clotting action. A lot of effort is going into developing more effective anti-clotting agents, however, one of the complications often encountered with these drugs is a corresponding increase in bleeding complications.

The new anti-clotting compounds Jackson's lab has developed have been patented world-wide and have progressed through preclinical toxicology programs and Phase I human trials.

"The results to date have been extremely encouraging as these compounds are well tolerated and do not cause bleeding side-effects," said Jackson.

The PI 3-kinase inhibitors are more effective than aspirin at preventing arterial thrombosis without increasing bleeding risk. In addition, these drugs can be administered concurrently with other anti-clotting agents, including anticoagulants such as heparin, without prolonging the bleeding time.

Further clinical and commercial development of the compounds is currently being undertaken by the Melbourne-based biotechnology company, Cerylid Biosciences.

The research was recently published in Nature Medicine.