Kochi, Oct 15 (UNI)

Amrita Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine, part of the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre has claimed to have discovered a potential cure for drug resistant leukemia.

Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) responds well to a drug named 'Imatinib', however, when drug resistance sets in, which is in about 20-25 per cent of the cases, the patients has little chance of survival, a press release said here today.

Drug resistance was due to certain point mutations in the leukemia cells as a result of which the cells find an alternative pathway for survival, preventing the drug from killing the cancer cells, it said.

The Centre has developed a nanomedicine which had shown significant ability to kill the drug reststant cancer cells.

The nanomedicine was developed over the past three years and has shown success in in-vitro (or cell line based) studies, it added.

The Centre was now conducting animal trials or pre-clinical studies of the drug, it said, adding that it is expected that if pre-clinical trials are successful the new nano medicine can be submitted for clinical trial after approval from the government.

This was the first such discovery in the world of nanomedicine that effectively solves the problem of severe drug resistance in blood cancers.

The senior scientists involved in the research and development was Dr Manzoor Koyakutty, Professor and Dr Shantikumar Nair, Centre Director and Dean of Research.

Clinicians from the hospital who are involved in the research are Dr Pavithran, Dr Neeraj and Dr Prabhu. The PhD student who has worked on this as part of her PhD thesis is Archana Ratnakumari, it added.

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New hope for leukemia patients