ZNstress: A new
high-throughput drug screening assay for identifying novel motor neuron disease
drugs
I work at the University of Sheffield in Dr Tennore Ramesh’s
group based at SITraN. We focus on using zebrafish to model motor neuron
disease (MND) and have generated models for many different mutations including
SOD1, C9orf72 and TDP-43. My particular focus has been on developing drug
screening techniques that use these fish to identify new drugs that treat MND.
Zebrafish are a great tool for investigating
neurodegenerative diseases and performing drug screening due to their small
size, large numbers, transparency, rapid development and their genetic makeup,
which is remarkably close to humans. All these pros allow large drugs screens
with 1000’s of drugs to be screened rapidly, something not possible before in
animal models of MND.
In our most recent paper we report that we have used the
sod1 zebrafish model to screen over 2000 drugs, with the ability to screen
100’s each week. Within this 2000 drugs we tested many drugs from past clinical
trials in MND and show that like in the human trials they fail to show efficacy
in the zebrafish model. The only drug that showed efficacy was Riluzole, the
current MND treatment. We believe that this highlights the true power of using
the zebrafish as a drug screening model for MND and we are now working hard to
analyse the other 2000 drugs, as well as screening further libraries. We are
hoping in the very near future we will have some exciting new potential
therapies to talk about that may help towards a cure for MND.
To read more about my work :full article
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