New Delhi: A common anti-asthma medicine can reduce the treatment duration for tuberculosis, biologists at the Indian Institute of Science have suggested after studying the drug’s role for close to a decade.
The scientists now plan to revive their earlier proposal to the Indian Council of Medical Research for conducting a clinical trial as the previous attempt to carry out such a trial didn’t materialise due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It is impossible to tell how much the treatment duration will be shortened without a human trial, but we guess it can be up to two months.
We plan to revive our proposal to the ICMR to examine repurposed use of Pranlukast, an anti-asthmatic drug, for TB treatment,” Avadhesha Surolia, a senior scientist at IISc's molecular biophysics unit told DH.
The Bengaluru team has been working on the repurposed medicine for many years and reported earlier how it can be useful in TB treatment.
New Delhi: A common anti-asthma medicine can reduce the treatment duration for tuberculosis, biologists at the Indian Institute of Science have suggested after studying the drug’s role for close to a decade.
The scientists now plan to revive their earlier proposal to the Indian Council of Medical Research for conducting a clinical trial as the previous attempt to carry out such a trial didn’t materialise due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It is impossible to tell how much the treatment duration will be shortened without a human trial, but we guess it can be up to two months. We plan to revive our proposal to the ICMR to examine repurposed use of Pranlukast, an anti-asthmatic drug, for TB treatment,” Avadhesha Surolia, a senior scientist at IISc's molecular biophysics unit told DH.
The Bengaluru team has been working on the repurposed medicine for many years and reported earlier how it can be useful in TB treatment. This time while further exploring the underlying immunological processes, they not only found the mechanism of how the bacteria were killed but also how the medicine helped repair the lung tissues.
