Melbourne researchers exploring gene therapy ‘turbo boost’

MELBOURNE researchers are exploring a gene therapy “turbo boost” for exercise to improve lifelong muscle strength and function.

Those with most to gain from a potential treatment are the elderly and frail, cancer patients suffering muscle wasting.

MELBOURNE researchers are exploring a gene therapy “turbo boost” for exercise to improve lifelong muscle strength and function.

Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute researchers have already shown it has promising effects in animals, doubling the size of leg muscles in mice within four weeks.

EXERCISE COULD HELP PREVENT BLINDNESS

Those with most to gain from a potential treatment are the elderly and frail, cancer patients suffering muscle wasting, surgical patients, and those having rehabilitation.

However, researchers hope it could also benefit newborns failing to thrive, sufferers of conditions such as muscular dystrophy, and even help the average adult achieve greater health benefits from exercise.

But global anti-doping bodies are funding research to find the “genetic signature”, so they can prove if someone has “doped” their muscles.

The therapy “turbo boost” improves muscle strength and function.

The head of the Institute’s laboratory for muscle research and therapeutic development, Dr Paul Gregorevic, said exercise alone often was not enough to overcome muscle wastage from disease or frailty.

“There is nothing on the shelf a doctor can prescribe for frailty and weakness, without significant side-effects,” Dr Gregorevic said. “If we can help people respond better so they don’t need to exercise as hard or as much to get benefit, that’s important.”

Laboratories and pharmaceutical companies worldwide are focusing on blocking the effects of myostatin, which acts as a “brake” on muscle growth.

Dr Gregorevic’s experiments have shown mice prevented from making the protein were born with larger, stronger muscles. Too much of the protein in a healthy animal causes muscle wasting.

The Institute is modifying viruses to deliver a gene therapy to reprogram muscle cells.

The team, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council for the next four years, is aiming to build a case for human clinical trials.

“Our hope is that by identifying ways we can give you better quality muscles, they’ll be more robust and you’ll be set on a different health trajectory,” Dr Gregorevic said.

And at Western Health’s Australian Institute for Musculoskeletal Science, researchers are part of an international trial of an antibody infusion, in combination with exercise and protein supplements, that aims to block the action of myostatin, to allow muscle growth.

Institute director Professor Gustavo Duque said they were also developing a drug to address both muscle wastage and fractures seen in osteoporosis — a common and often fatal combination.

@BrigidOConnell

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