While additional human testing is needed, Saucerman says the new computer model has demonstrated great potential for identifying already available drugs that can be repurposed to battle heart failure, a condition affecting millions of Americans.
"This new computer tool helps us find new uses for old drugs, and it also explains how they may work in the heart," Saucerman said."New drugs take decades to develop. We hope this tool will help us find drugs for heart failure that are already known to be safe and effective for other diseases."Heart failure is a progressive condition that grows worse with time.
While there are drugs used to treat heart failure, more than half of people with the condition die within five years of diagnosis. That speaks to how urgently new and better treatments are needed. With that in mind, Saucerman and Eggertsen created a complex computer model of the harmful growth of heart muscle cells prior to heart failure. This model allowed them to run sophisticated simulations demonstrating how existing drugs would affect the process known as cardiac hypertrophy.that we would not have suspected," Eggertsen said.
The researchers screened more than 250 candidate drugs and found 38 that slowed the harmful heart changes. In addition, the model let the scientists understand how the drugs were having this effect, helping the researchers narrow their options. They then tested the most promising drugs in heart muscle cells. They ultimately found that midostaurin, a chemotherapy drug used to treat
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