What is the issue for NSW?
Stroke is the second leading cause of death and leading cause of disability, with devastating social and economic impacts. There are approximately 50,000 stroke cases in Australia every year (average of one every 11 minutes) that lead to 8,500 to 10,000 deaths. 85% of these are ischaemic strokes that result from a clot that restricts blood flow to the brain. Half of all stroke survivors have cognitive impairment 6 months following a stroke, a quarter require support for daily activities and another quarter live in aged care facilities.
Current stroke treatments attempt to dissolve the clot with a drug or remove the clot surgically. However, neither of these approaches work adequately due to re-blockage of the blood vessel after treatment. While the use of alternative clot-busting drugs called anticoagulants can prevent re-blockage, these agents cause life-threatening bleeding. New safer anticoagulants for use in stroke are needed to help thousands of patients in NSW every year.
What does the research aim to do and how?
This program seeks to address the unmet need for effective and safe therapies for treating stroke. It will leverage cutting-edge technologies from our lab to discover new classes of anticoagulants. It will:
1) Capitalise on the recent discovery of an anticoagulant produced by a native tick that has reduced bleeding side effects.
2) Develop intracranial stents coated with highly potent and stable anticoagulants to reduce clot formation.
These will be assessed in sophisticated preclinical stroke models. This interdisciplinary program promises to deliver more effective and safe therapies to alleviate the enormous burden stroke imposes on patients, communities and healthcare systems globally.
The top three key measures/indicators being used to assess the research outcomes are:
- Discovery of novel sulphated peptides inspired by natural tick anticoagulants that can be used for safe and effective therapy alone or in combination with other drugs in stroke models.
- Development of next generation stents that can prevent stent thrombosis in preclinical models.
- Selection of a patented lead anticoagulant and anticoagulant-coated stent for progression to clinical trials.