Drugs block mouse nerve cell death in Huntington's disease

Dr. Ilya Bezproxvanny, associate professor of physiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and his research colleagues have discovered that certain drugs may hold promise for treating Huntington's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder. Enoxaparin, an anti-coagulant, nortriptyline and desipramine, both antidepressants, and trifluoperazine, an antipsychotic, all blocked the death of mouse nerve cells containing mutant huntingtin protein. The next step, according to the research team, will be to test these drugs in living mice and other animals with Huntington's disease. The research was published in the February 1, 2005, edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.