Dec. 29, 2004 - The natural form of Prialt - a new drug for
severe pain approved this week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- was discovered at the University of Utah in 1979 by an incoming
freshman studying toxins produced by cone snails.
The student, J. Michael McIntosh, worked in the laboratory of
University of Utah biologist Baldomero "Toto" Olivera, the summer before
his freshman year as the result of a scholarship interview.
Now, 25 years later, Olivera is a distinguished professor of
biology who still studies cone snails and how substances in their venom
may be developed into drugs, and McIntosh is a professor of psychiatry
and research professor of biology at the university.
McIntosh says his experience as an 18-year-old working in
Olivera's laboratory shows "the university provides a very unusual
opportunity for undergraduate students to participate in cutting-edge
research that can make a real difference."
Olivera says McIntosh first isolated and characterized the
painkiller in the venom of the fish-hunting cone snail Conus magus, or
magician's cone, which is about 1.5 inches long and thus too small to
kill people it stings, as do some larger cone snails.
McIntosh discovered a component or "factor" in the venom
affected the nervous system. He purified it and determined its chemical
structure. Later, University of Utah biologist Doju Yoshikami determined
the factor blocked the transmission of nerve signals through certain
connections or synapses between nerve cells.
Olivera and Yoshikami developed the factor - named omega-MVIIA,
or omega conotoxin M seven A - for use in basic research in
neuroscience. "It blocks communication between nerve cells," allowing
researchers to learn what nerve circuits do normally by seeing what goes
wrong when the connections are blocked, Olivera says.
The university didn't patent omega-MVIIA because the substance
"didn't have a definitive therapeutic use" at the time, he adds.
"As with many basic science discoveries, the clinical importance
of the discovery wasn't appreciated at the time," McIntosh says.
Olivera and Yoshikami collaborated in basic research on
omega-MVIIA with George Miljanich, who worked at the University of
Southern California and later moved to Neurex Corp., where Miljanich
explored the substance's therapeutic potential.
Neurex ultimately was acquired by Elan Corp., based in Dublin,
Ireland. On Dec. 28, Elan got FDA approval to sell Prialt for chronic,
intractable pain suffered by people with cancer, AIDS, injury, failed
back surgery or certain nervous system disorders.
The drug is expected to be available in the United States in
late January 2005. It is injected into fluid surrounding the spinal cord
by external or implanted pumps.
"The commercial product, Prialt, is chemically identical to
omega-MVIIA, except that it is made synthetically instead of by snails,"
Olivera says.
McIntosh now directs research in the Department of Psychiatry at
the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, and treats adolescents
and adults who have depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder
(manic-depression) and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
University of Utah Public Relations
201 S Presidents Circle, Room 308
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9017
(801) 581-6773 fax: 585-3350
www.utah.edu/unews
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