America
Viagra may have anti-cancer properties
New York, March 10
Viagra does not only
enhance sexual performance but may also, when combined with new drugs,
treat certain cancers and neuro-degenerative diseases such as
Alzheimer's, say researchers.
The team from Virginia Commonwealth
University, Richmond found that an experimental compound derived from
the drug Celebrex interacts with Viagra to reduce levels of chaperone
proteins.
Chaperone proteins are promising new targets for drugs
to treat cancer and Alzheimer's disease and for novel antiviral drugs
and antibiotics.
"Drugs like Celebrex and Viagra are readily
available and generally recognised as safe. This study may lead to new
applications of these relatively new medicines," said Carol Shoshkes
Reiss, Editor-in-Chief of the journal DNA and Cell Biology that
published the study.
The potential impact, if the experiments described are translatable to human disease, could be paradigm-shifting.
"The
potential applications are serious antibiotic resistant infections,
chemotherapy-resistant cancers and neuro-degenerative disease ranging
from Parkinson's disease to Huntington's or Alzheimer's disease,"
explained Reiss, also professor at New York University.
The
article by researchers Laurence Booth, Jane Roberts and Paul Dent from
Virginia Commonwealth University detailed a comprehensive discussion of
the Chaperone protein and the published evidence for its role in various
human diseases.