Project Details
Popular science description
Every year, 15 million people in the world suffer from a stroke. Of these, six million people die and five million will suffer permanent damage. In 80 percent of the cases, the stroke is due to a blood clot stuck in one of the brain's blood vessels. The blood clot reduces the blood flow to a part of the brain, and immediately, brain cells will start to die due to lack of oxygen. The only way to save the dying brain is to remove the blood clot, and today, there is only one clot-dissolving drug with these properties.
The problem is that this drug must be given within 4.5 hours from the onset of symptoms, as the risk of brain bleeding increases gradually. Only five - ten percent of those affected by a blood clot in the brain can get this treatment due to the risk of bleeding. The increasing risk of brain bleeding is due to that in addition to the drug’s clot-dissolving properties, it affects the body in such a way that it begins to produce a certain type of protein, so-called proteases. Proteases resembles Pac-Man, the figure from the well-known arcade game from the 1980s.
Like Pac-Man, proteases eat what they come in contact with, in this case, the Pac-Man-like proteases will begin to "eat" on the brain's vascular walls. The vessels will slowly break down, and in the worst cases, they break down so that a bleeding occurs in the brain. A brain bleeding is a life-threatening condition, which has meant that treatment with the clot dissolving drug due to a blood clot in the brain is limited to very few patients. But what would happen if you could "shut the mouth" on these Pac-Man-like proteases and prevent the damage?
In addition of preventing the damage, we are also looking into if we could help "boost" the brain recovery after stroke. We now that after a stroke the brain will start healing itself, however it is often not enough to heal all damage. What we would want is to treat the brain with a molecule we know help promote "self-healing" to push the brains capacity of self-healing a bit more.
So in this PhD project we want to see if we can improve the clot dissolving therapy in the acute phase to prevent further damage, and to improve boost the recovery of the stroke to improve the stroke outcome.
The problem is that this drug must be given within 4.5 hours from the onset of symptoms, as the risk of brain bleeding increases gradually. Only five - ten percent of those affected by a blood clot in the brain can get this treatment due to the risk of bleeding. The increasing risk of brain bleeding is due to that in addition to the drug’s clot-dissolving properties, it affects the body in such a way that it begins to produce a certain type of protein, so-called proteases. Proteases resembles Pac-Man, the figure from the well-known arcade game from the 1980s.
Like Pac-Man, proteases eat what they come in contact with, in this case, the Pac-Man-like proteases will begin to "eat" on the brain's vascular walls. The vessels will slowly break down, and in the worst cases, they break down so that a bleeding occurs in the brain. A brain bleeding is a life-threatening condition, which has meant that treatment with the clot dissolving drug due to a blood clot in the brain is limited to very few patients. But what would happen if you could "shut the mouth" on these Pac-Man-like proteases and prevent the damage?
In addition of preventing the damage, we are also looking into if we could help "boost" the brain recovery after stroke. We now that after a stroke the brain will start healing itself, however it is often not enough to heal all damage. What we would want is to treat the brain with a molecule we know help promote "self-healing" to push the brains capacity of self-healing a bit more.
So in this PhD project we want to see if we can improve the clot dissolving therapy in the acute phase to prevent further damage, and to improve boost the recovery of the stroke to improve the stroke outcome.
| Status | Active |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 2017/09/01 → … |
Subject classification (UKÄ)
- Neurology