What is it about?
House dust mites are major triggers of allergic asthma and related diseases because these creatures expose people to a large range of different allergenic proteins. Currently, treatment of these conditions involves the alleviation of their symptoms but does little to tackle the trigger itself. New findings suggest that targeting just one type of house dust mite allergen is sufficient to produce wide-ranging effects on disease mechanisms. This paper reviews the scientific case behind this new approach and the design of first-generation drugs exploiting this new knowledge.
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Why is it important?
Allergic asthma and related diseases have a significant global impact on individuals and society as a whole. Despite the availability of safe and efficacious medicines, these chronic conditions still have many unmet needs. This paper describes the background to the first small-molecule approach designed to deal with the trigger of disease rather than merely attempting to limit its symptoms. This represents a major shift in approach to thinking about future therapies for these diseases.
Perspectives
This work was funded by the Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery Initiative. When introduced, this scheme was intended to bridge the gap between academic discovery and the translation of ideas into drug discovery and development programmes. Working with the people at Wellcome and with all of our partners has been both a privilege and an immensely enjoyable experience. It has probably been the most intellectually stimulating project I have been involved in.......and the most fun - two essential ingredients for good science.
Clive Robinson
St George's, University of London
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Allergen Delivery Inhibitors: A Rationale for Targeting Sentinel Innate Immune Signaling of Group 1 House Dust Mite Allergens through Structure-Based Protease Inhibitor Design, Molecular Pharmacology, July 2018, American Society for Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET),
DOI: 10.1124/mol.118.112730.
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