The Hindu : National : Reversal of neurodegenerative disorders predicted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 13, 2005

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National

Reversal of neurodegenerative disorders predicted

By Our Special Correspondent

Venu Srinivasan, industrialist, presenting a memento and scroll to Anne B. Young, Professor of Neurology at the silver jubilee of T. S. Srinivasan Endowment Oration in Chennai on Saturday. Krishnamoorthy Srinivas (left) looks on. — Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI, FEB. 12. The future of therapeutics in neurodegenerative disorders would be reversal of some of the problems caused by the disease in its early stages, Anne B. Young, Julieanne Dorn professor of neurology at the Harvard Medical School, said here today.

Prof. Young, who is also the chief of Neurology Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a specialist in movement disorders, said that this would be the dramatic phenomenon that would revolutionise treatment of such disorders. While work was on to develop effective therapeutics to slow the progress of the disease after onset or even delay the onset of disease, clearly the promise lay in being able to reverse the complications after onset, she said.

Identification

Delivering the Silver Jubilee T.S. Srinivasan Endowment Oration, instituted by the T.S. Srinivasan family, the series' first lady orator said identifying the gene and the protein causing the disorder was the first step in examining the pathway and mechanisms of the disease. Defective genes in combination with the environment and the process of ageing led to formation of protein clumps in the brain that eventually lead to brain cell death, symptomatically exhibited as movement and muscular disorders, memory, mood and personality disorders, disability and finally, death.

Animal models

Once the gene and the protein were identified, they could be inserted in animal models, to produce illness in the animal that would mimic the disease, thereby allowing researchers to study the disease more rapidly. Screening tests for the newer drugs on the animal models thus created, are carried out and made available subsequently for human drug trials for those specific disorders.

Earlier, she received the Oration's gold medal and scroll from Venu Srinivasan, industrialist and son of T.S. Srinivasan. Mr. Srinivasan detailed the journey and milestones that the lecture series had seen since it was instituted 25 years ago. It had begun as an effort to bring to India, recent advances in the neurosciences.

The T.S. Srinivasan Department of Clinical Neurology and Research at the Public Health Centre, West Mambalam, and the T.S. Srinivasan Centre for Clinical Neurosciences at the Voluntary Health Services (VHS), Taramani, have had several honours and achievements to their credit. The newly-inaugurated Centre at the VHS had been recognised as a centre of excellence by the Madras University and would focus on community neurosciences research, training and education, with the vision of taking neurosciences to the community, he added.

The chairman, Neurosciences Group of India, Krishnamoorthy Srinivas, also participated in the evening's function.

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