Researchers have developed a new highly effective therapeutic for pain relief by altering the chemical properties of an antinausea drug, netupitant. The modified drug is able to enter the intracellular membrane-bound endosome and target the GPCRs therein, rather than at the cell surface, that leads to optimal pain relief. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on May 22, 2023, was led by Nigel Bunnett, Professor and Chair of Molecular Pathobiology at NYU College of Dentistry, and illustrates how GPCR-mediated pain signaling occurs inside the endosomes rather than at the surface, highlighting the need for drugs that can reach receptors within the cells itself.

The researchers who enabled patients with spinal cord injuries to walk independently after implanting programmable electrodes below their lesions have now taken things one step further, restoring direct communication from the brain to the spinal cord, enabling the brain rather than an external computer to direct leg movements.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is caused by mutations in the SMN1 gene, which encodes survival motor neuron 1, leading to reduced protein expression levels and degeneration of motor neurons in the spinal cord, with the consequent muscle atrophy. There is thus a need for new AAV gene therapies for SMA that confer better safety and efficacy.

Researchers from Skyline Therapeutics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. presented preclinical data for the new recombinant AAV vector therapeutic SKG-0106, being developed for the treatment of neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (AMD).