Psoriasis gene cream results published

A Melbourne-developed topical antisense drug has been shown to successfully penetrate human psoriasis lesions, paving the way for better treatment of the disease.

The work - a collaboration between researchers at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and Antisense Therapeutics (ASX: ANP) - appears today in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology (White et al).

As flagged by Australian Biotechnology News in March, the development has made the team one of the first in the world to successfully create a gene cream that can penetrate psoriasis lesions.

Team leader Dr Christopher Wraight said psoriasis affected as many as 300,000 Australians, with existing treatments predominantly involved in easing symptoms.

He said the condition was chronic and poorly understood, and was characterised by red scaly patches of skin that came and went throughout life.

Wraight said the results gave the collaboration the confidence to move to pre-clinical studies.

"The causes of psoriasis are unclear," he said.

"We do know that it involves an abnormal immune response in the skin in which the affected cells grow more rapidly.

"We expect our cream to slow the growth of these cells."

Wraight said the group's research had shown that affected cells grew faster in response to a growth factor called IGF-I.

He said the antisense drug worked by stopping each cell from responding to this growth factor, by blocking the cell's production of its receptor protein.