Doctors in muscle disease breakthrough
Published: June 3, 2005
DOCTORS at the Royal Free Hospital have developed a new technique for tackling muscle wasting diseases.
Professor Geoff Goldspink and Dr Shi Yu Yang have developed the breakthrough gene therapy to help patients suffering from illnesses such as muscular dystrophy and motor neurone disease.
The treatment involves injecting a gene into wasted muscles and could increase patients’ strength by up to 40 per cent.
But there are already fears that the treatment could be abused by athletes looking to improve their performance
Prof Goldspink said: “It is very exciting even though it will be misused because it has such an incredible effect on muscle growth.
“Every week I get emails from people who have read about our research and who have muscle wasting diseases for which there is no treatment at the moment.
“It would be great to be able to do something to help save these people from what can be a dreadful, lingering death.”
Previous attempts to boost one type of cell using gene therapy have increased the risks of cancer.
But Prof Goldspink says his technique carries no such side effects.
It could even help cancer patients by counteracting muscle loss associated with their disease, making chemotherapy more effective.
Prof Goldspink said: “There are many illnesses where muscle loss is a problem and patients actually die from that loss rather than the illness.”
The research has yet to go through official clinical trials but the research team is in discussions with a pharmaceutical company to start tests soon.
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