(Press-News.org) Cambridge scientists have developed and tested a new drug in mice that has the potential to reduce damage to the brain when blood flow is restored following a stroke.
As many as one in four people will have a stroke during their lifetime. This is when a blood clot prevents oxygen from reaching a part of the brain. The first few hours following a stroke are crucial – the blood clot needs to be removed quickly so that the oxygen supply to the brain can be restored; otherwise, the brain tissue begins to die.
Currently, the outcome for stroke patients receiving even the best available treatment, known as mechanical thrombectomy, is still poor, with fewer than one in 10 patients leaving hospital with no neurological impairment.
Professor Thomas Krieg from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge said: “Stroke is a devastating disease. Even for those who survive, there is a significant risk of damage to the brain that can lead to disabilities and a huge impact on an individual’s life. But in terms of treatment, once the stroke is happening, we have only limited options.”
Mechanical thrombectomy is a minimally invasive medical procedure involving the insertion of a thin tube, known as a catheter, into a blood vessel, often through the groin or arm. This is guided to the blood clot, where it is removed by a tiny device, restoring normal blood flow.
Restoring blood flow too suddenly can make things worse, however. This is called ischaemia-reperfusion injury. When blood rushes back into the oxygen-starved tissue (a process known as reperfusion), the damaged cells struggle to cope, leading to the production of harmful molecules called free radicals that can damage cells, proteins, and DNA. This triggers further damage and can cause an inflammatory response.
The Cambridge team has previously shown that when the brain is starved of oxygen, a build-up occurs of a chemical called succinate. When blood flow is restored, the succinate is rapidly oxidised to drive free radical production within mitochondria, the ‘batteries’ that power our cells, initiating the extra damage. This occurs within the first few minutes of reperfusion, but the researchers showed that the oxidation of succinate can be blocked by the molecule malonate.
Professor Mike Murphy from the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit said: “All of this happens very rapidly, but if we can get malonate in quickly at the start of reperfusion, we can prevent this oxidation and burst of free radicals.
“We discovered in our labs that we can get malonate into cells very quickly by lowering the pH a little, making it a bit more acidic, so that it can cross the blood-brain barrier better. If we inject it into the brain just as we’re ready to reperfuse, then we can potentially prevent further damage.”
In a study published in Cardiovascular Research, the team has shown that treating the brain with a form of the chemical known as acidified disodium malonate (aDSM) alongside mechanical thrombectomy greatly decreased the amount of brain damage that occurs from ischaemia-reperfusion injury by as much as 60%.
Dr Jordan Lee, a postdoctoral researcher in the group, developed a mouse model that mimics mechanical thrombectomy, allowing the team to test the effectiveness of aDSM against ischaemia-reperfusion injury.
Dr Lee said: “This approach reduces the amount of dead brain tissue resulting from a stroke. This is incredibly important because the amount of dead brain tissue is directly correlated to the patient’s recovery – to their disability, whether they can still use all their limbs, speak and understand language, for example.”
Mechanical thrombectomy is increasingly used in the NHS, and the researchers hope that with the addition of aDSM as a treatment alongside this intervention, they will be able to improve outcomes significantly when the procedure is more widely adopted.
The team has launched Camoxis Therapeutics, a spin-out company, with support from Cambridge Enterprise, the innovation arm of the University of Cambridge. It is now seeking seed funding to develop the drug further and take it to early-stage clinical trials.
Professor Murphy added: “If it’s successful, this same drug could have much wider applications for other instances of ischemia-reperfusion injuries, such as heart attack, resuscitation, organ transplantation, and so on, which have similar underlying mechanisms.”
The research was supported by the British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.
Reference
Lee, JJ et al. Local arterial administration of acidified malonate as an adjunct therapy to mechanical thrombectomy in ischemic stroke. Cardiovascular Research; 27 Jun 2025; DOI: 10.1093/cvr/cvaf118
END
New treatment could reduce brain damage from stroke, study in mice shows
2025-07-31
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
4,000-year-old teeth record the earliest traces of people chewing psychoactive betel nuts
2025-07-31
In south-east Asia, betel nut chewing has been practiced since antiquity. The plants contain compounds that enhance the consumer’s alertness, energy, euphoria, and relaxation. Although the practice is becoming less common in modern times, it has been deeply embedded in social and cultural traditions for thousands of years. Chewing betel nuts typically results in dark, reddish-brown to black stained teeth.
Yet, teeth without staining may not mean that people didn’t chew betel nuts. Now, using a new method, an international team ...
Efficient solar harvesting even in high humidity
2025-07-31
The Energy & Environment Materials Research Division of the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), led by Dr. Dong-chan Lim and Dr. So-yeon Kim, has developed a highly durable flexible perovskite solar cell material and fabrication process that remains stable even under high humidity conditions. This breakthrough enables the production of high-efficiency solar cells in ambient air without the need for expensive equipment, offering the potential for significant cost reductions in manufacturing.
Perovskite has attracted attention as a next-generation material capable of replacing conventional silicon solar cells due to its excellent light absorption, ...
Heavy drinking raises the risk of undesired pregnancy; cannabis use does not
2025-07-31
A new study has found that, among women with a high desire to avoid becoming pregnant, those who drank heavily had a 50% higher risk of becoming pregnant than those who drank moderately or not at all. In contrast, participants who used cannabis were no more likely to have an undesired pregnancy than participants who did not use cannabis.
From a larger sample of over 2,000 non-pregnant women aged 15-34, researchers identified a subgroup of 936 who didn't want to get pregnant. Within that subgroup, ...
New study shows young adults who use high strength cannabis do not ‘titrate’ to less risky levels of use
2025-07-31
A new study published today in the scientific journal Addiction has found that young adults in the US do not ‘titrate’ when using strong cannabis. In other words, they do not use less cannabis to compensate for the stronger potency. In fact, it’s the opposite: young adults who report using strong cannabis also typically use it more frequently and in higher quantities than young adults who use weaker forms of the drug.
This study surveyed over 400 young adults in California USA who had used cannabis in the past month. They were asked to describe the strength of their typical cannabis product using a THC potency scale of 0 (no THC) to 5 (very high THC concentration). ...
Black hole vibes
2025-07-31
Kyoto, Japan -- Black holes embody the ultimate abyss. They are the most powerful sources of gravity in the universe, capable of dramatically distorting space and time around them. When disturbed, they begin to "ring" in a distinctive pattern known as quasinormal modes: ripples in space-time that produce detectable gravitational waves.
In events like black hole mergers, these waves can be strong enough to detect from Earth, offering a unique opportunity to measure a black hole's mass and shape. However, precise calculation of these vibrations through theoretical methods ...
Actual distance travelled by migrating whales drastically underestimated
2025-07-31
Whales are swimming further than previously estimated - up to 20% more - according to a new study published in Ecology.
Co-authored by Griffith University’s Dr Olaf Meynecke, the study reveals traditional methods for calculating animal movement may be drastically underestimating the actual distance travelled, particularly for marine species such as whales.
“For years, we've tracked whales using satellite tags, plotting their movements across oceans,” Dr Meynecke said.
“But this research shows we’ve been looking ...
The eagles resistant to poisonous toads
2025-07-31
Kyoto, Japan -- In 1978, cane toads, which are native to South and Central America, were introduced for pest control to Ishigaki island in Okinawa prefecture in Japan. These poisonous toads secrete deadly toxins, killing enough of the predators in their new territories that they have been designated an invasive species.
However, one predator on Ishigaki has proven resistant to the cane toads' poison. The crested serpent eagle, common across Asia but considered critically endangered in Japan where only about 200 individuals reside, has been observed feeding on the toads on the ...
Cyberstalking growing at faster rate than other forms of stalking
2025-07-31
Cyberstalking is increasing at a faster rate than traditional stalking and is disproportionately affecting young people, women, and members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community, according to a new study led by researchers from UCL.
The study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, is the first to use nationally representative data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) to examine the prevalence and perception of cyberstalking over an eight-year period (2012–2020).
It revealed that while cyberstalking remains less common than physical stalking, the proportion of ...
CPADS: a web tool for comprehensive pancancer analysis of drug sensitivity
2025-07-30
CPADS integrates data from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and the Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) databases, encompassing over 29,000 samples across 44 cancer types and involving 288 drugs. It provides five main analysis modules: differential expression analysis, correlation analysis, pathway analysis, drug analysis, and gene perturbation analysis. These modules enable users to explore gene expression changes, correlations between genes or drugs, pathway enrichment, drug sensitivity, and the ...
Several healthy diet patterns are associated with reduced risk of type 2 diabetes regardless of ethnicity – shows meta-analysis of more than 800,000 people
2025-07-30
A large new meta-analysis of more than 800,000 participants to be presented at this year’s Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Vienna, Austria (15-19 September) shows that high adherence to three well-established healthy eating patterns is linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, regardless of one’s ethnicity. The study is led by PhD student and Gates Cambridge Scholar Ms Jia Yi Lee, Professor Nita Forouhi, and colleagues from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK.
The study investigated three healthy dietary patterns: the ...