Team studying way to modify cells to stop next heart attack
A group of four researchers from two medical institutions here are working together to come up with personalised treatment for patients to have a better shot at life after their first heart attack.
They are doing so with a new understanding of the disease – attained by breaking down blood plasma and platelets – with a sleek, futuristic-looking machine that costs more than half a million dollars.
Instead of focusing on cholesterol, which has been widely studied as a cause of heart attack, the researchers are concentrating on sphingolipids, another type of molecule which is found in human blood.
By monitoring the levels of sphingolipids in patients who have suffered a heart attack, researchers can “pick up a signature to predict whether they will do well in a year’s time”, said Dr Jean-Paul Kovalik. “This is something we can’t predict with the standard clinical tests we have,” added the 42-year-old assistant professor at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School.
So far, the usual method is to use medicine to try to prevent cells from signalling. For example, drugs that fight cancer block a cancerous cell’s ability to stimulate growth.
But Dr Kovalik and his team use another method: They want to stop heart attacks by getting into the cells and changing their biochemistry.
Dr Mark Chan, 41, a senior consultant with National University Heart Centre, said: “Sphingolipids are special because they can potentially be a target for treatment. You can modify their levels and maybe improve a patient’s chance of survival.”
Altering sphingolipid levels require the help of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, an analysis technique done by a machine such as one purchased by Duke-NUS in May.
Only one microlitre of sample – smaller than a drop of blood from a finger prick – is needed to run an analysis that can be completed in under a minute.
The university charges $75 to $112.50 per analysis.
Currently, researchers are about to conduct tests on animals.
In addition to heart attacks, the machine is also being used by other clinicians to study other diseases such as diabetes, dementia and degenerative eye conditions.
Their research, if successful, can bring about treatments that are specifically targeted to change a cell’s composition in less than a decade.
Dr Kovalik said: “If you think about a living organism, it’s basically a series of chemical reactions that are finely balanced and keeps everything running.”
“In many types of different diseases, these chemical reactions become unbalanced,” he added.
Source: The Straits Times
Published: 25 Oct 2014
