Science Farm Ltd.
Neuroprotectants
Cerebral infarction occurs when a blood vessel in the brain is blocked, causing cerebral ischemia, which prevents blood flow to the brain and causes brain cell death. Neuroprotectants are drugs that prevent this.
When a clogged cerebral blood vessel re-canalizes due to a cerebral infarction, oxygen rushes into the area where the infarction occurred and free radicals are generated. These free radicals cause lipid peroxidation to produce the cytotoxic aldehyde HNE in the brain, causing neuronal cell death.
The only currently approved neuroprotective drug, edaravone, is a drug that scavenges free radicals generated during cerebral ischemia. We have developed a compound CNN that scavenges the toxic body HNE produced by the action of free radicals.
We conducted joint research with Professor Motohiro Morioka of Kurume University Neurosurgery, and as a result, we found that CNN significantly suppressed the loss of hippocampal CA1 cells in a gerbil cerebral ischemia model.
We are further developing CNN and conducting research aimed at neuroprotective drugs that act by new mechanisms.
