New technique appears to stop abnormal blood ves...( researchers created a gene that makes a...),Health

"It's an arrest mechanism essentially," says Dr. Ambati. "It will bind and sequester. If you are VEGF and I am Flt-KDEL complex, I am going to grab you and keep you from leaving the room." If a protein spends too much time in the factory, called the endoplasmic reticulum, the cell destroys it.

The researchers get intraceptors inside cells by putting the manmade gene that makes them inside a carrier called a plasmid, an approach used in gene therapy and naturally by bacteria in the body to carry around extra genes.

Preliminary evidence indicates this technology can not only prevent blood vessel formation but also help eliminate existing blood vessels, Dr. Ambati says.

Much laboratory work remains before clinical trials are considered, he says. The researchers need to study the process in the retina, the target of abnormal blood vessel growth that occurs in the wet form of macular degeneration as well as diabetic retinopathy. He plans to do additional cancer studies and longer-term follow up the technology's ability to forestall destructive new growth. Meanwhile, the MCG Office of Technology Transfer and Economic has obtained a provisional patent on the technology.

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Contact: Toni Baker
tbaker@mcg.edu
706-721-4421
Medical College of Georgia
31-May-2005