IT IS a ray of hope in the battle against prion diseases such as vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease. German chemists have made a group of compounds with an “unprecedented” ability to destroy the malformed prions thought to cause such diseases.
Peter Gmeiner of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and his team synthesised 18 compounds combining parts of a molecule called quinacrine – now in clinical trials as a therapy for human prion diseases – with the antidepressant, imipramine, which also has anti-prion activity (Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, DOI: 10.1021/jm060773j). Tests on mouse cells with the disease scrapie showed the compounds destroyed prions, with one…
