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A new technique developed by J. Julius Zhu, PhD and his colleagues at the University of Virginia Medical School, has the potential to manipulate molecules inside the body. a cell to reduce the risk of side effects. The molecules can function in different ways depending on their location. By manipulating their location, scientists can easily decide which site to target exactly and avoid locations that can lead to side effects. The study was published recently in the journal Neuron.
"The problem with side effects is caused because you could not distinguish molecules doing different things in the same cell," Zhu said. "If you blocked a molecule, you blocked it, no matter what it did, and it usually has unwanted side effects." Almost all drugs that can treat the disease have major side effects. or minor, but usually they always have something. "
Drugs are currently targeting molecules in a very general way – by simply blocking a molecule that could cause problems. Zhu and his team decided to take another route and showed that this method was not very effective. A molecule could go bad because of the state of the cell and its processes, but a molecule could behave entirely differently in other places inside the same cell. According to Zhu, completely stopping the molecule would be similar to "trying to solve the problem of traffic congestion by banning cars".
The technique developed by his team proposes that instead of blocking molecules, researchers target a specific molecule performing a specific function in a specific location. It will be a major aid in the field of precision medicine, which is a medicine that aims to meet exactly the needs of the patient.
Zhu is pleased that this technique will not only help treat a variety of diseases, but it will be particularly beneficial for the treatment of often life-threatening diseases such as cancer and neurological disorders such as autism and dementia. 39; Alzheimer. The technique will also accelerate the development of new treatments as researchers will be able to quickly understand which molecules they should target based on what the molecule does. "The idea [behind the technique] is actually very simple," Zhu said. "But it took us many years for this thing to work."
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