Shaping medicine to save injured people

Severe injury, especially when blood loss is too much, the victim is very easy to die on the way to emergency. American scientists are studying drugs that prevent some biological mechanisms from working so that injured people can pass the most critical moment.

This drug has only been tested in animals. If it works for humans, it will be produced to increase survival for seriously injured people, especially soldiers.

Solve the problem of blood loss

For casualties on the battlefield, blood loss is the most painful problem because it is difficult to transport enough blood and equipment needed for blood transfusion or saline. 'You can't bring blood banks to the front. What we need is medicine or injections that help injured people to fight death, not to die on an emergency journey, ' said Hasan Alam, who works at Massachusetts General Hospital (USA). On average, it takes four hours to transfer the injured person to the hospital.

When losing a lot of blood, the body seeks to compensate by falling into a state of shock. This is a group of emergency measures to raise blood pressure and conserve energy, for example increasing heart rate, stopping gene expression in some proteins. However, if the body is in a state of shock for too long, the organs will stop working, and death will come soon after.

Recent studies have shown that, in response to shock, 6-7% of genes change by eliminating chemical supplements to the genome, called acetylation. Gene expression is the process of converting genetic information contained in DNA sequences into proteins that express the structure and function of the cell itself. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors may inhibit acetylation. Therefore, Alam and colleagues believe that using HDAC may increase the survival of patients with high blood loss.

Alam's team has demonstrated that valproic acid, an HDAC inhibitor used to treat seizures, increases the survival rate in mice with high blood loss. Currently, Alam conducts similar research and experiments on pigs. He anesthetized the pigs, took out 60% of the blood, subjected them to some other injuries, infused salt water into their bodies. Then, he injected some valproic acid into some pigs, transfused some others, and left the rest.

As a result, only 25% of pigs were given live saline for four hours; 86% of pigs were vaccinated with valproic acid; and all pigs transfused are healthy.

If the new drug is born, injured soldiers will be the priority.Photo: Archives.gov

Year-end testing on people?

Alam is testing again on pigs to ensure that valproic acid actually increases survival for a long time. If that result is achieved, he will ask the authorities for permission to test on humans at the end of 2010.

'That's very wonderful! They approached, studying the possibility of saving people who were about to die in a separate, completely different way. ' , John Holcomb of the University of Texas (USA) commented on the scientific work of the research team standing by Alam. head.

Previous work of the research team showed that mice that survived naturally (without human support) after losing a lot of blood had fewer changes in gene expression than their peers. died or survived but suffered many complications. They think that the same thing can happen to people.

'Everyone has this ability to survive after being seriously injured. However, this ability 'hibernates' all the time. That's why the same trauma that this person lost, the other person "looks deadly and laughing". What we are trying to do is help injured people enhance their resilience thanks to biological mechanisms, namely the activity of proteins in each person, ' Alam said.

However, Graham Packham, working at Southampton General Hospital (UK), who is studying the use of HDAC inhibitors to treat cancer, said that it is still unclear if valproic acid increases the chances of surviving the mechanism. because this acid interacts with many molecules.