Personalized Medicine “It doesn't get more personal than this.”

medicine
By Ilana Teitelbaum
16
The war on drugs makes headlines,
but it’s the victims of addiction who are
caught in the crossfire, facing a grueling
road to recovery for which there are few
effective treatments. And in cases of
prescription drugs such as Oxycodone
or Ritalin, even patients in a clinical
setting can fall prey to addiction.
At TAU’s Dr. Miriam and Sheldon
G. Adelson Center for the Biology of
Addictive Diseases, scientists are analyzing
– practically molecule by molecule
– the biological processes of addiction.
They are advancing new and unexpected
solutions and finding hidden properties
to addictive drugs that may offer treatments
for various degenerative diseases.
Comprising researchers from a variety
of disciplines, including neurobiology
and psychology, the center is part of
the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and is
the first of its kind in Israel.
Taking the pain out of morphine
withdrawal
The capacity of morphine to treat
debilitating pain comes with a serious
downside: it is a highly addictive drug.
Withdrawal produces intense pain, diarrhea
and other symptoms, all of which
make recovery from addiction extremely
traumatic for patients.
Until now there has been no treatment
that could completely and permanently
alleviate the withdrawal
symptoms from morphine addiction.
Thinking
Outside the Box
about Addiction
TAU scientists are researching new
medications and therapies for the
treatment of addictive drugs
Prof. Yosef Sarne, a researcher at the
Adelson Center who is investigating
the properties of morphine, discovered
that a miniscule dose of morphine – less
than one thousandth of a normal dose
– causes the same severe pain and diarrhea
that occur during withdrawal from
morphine. Prof. Sarne determined that
the blood of patients undergoing withdrawal
contains these same miniscule
doses of morphine. Because the drug
takes time to leave the body entirely, it
may be these tiny quantities of the drug
Prof. Zvi
Vogel,
Director of
the Adelson
Center
that cause the debilitating withdrawal
symptoms.
Armed with this knowledge, Prof.
Sarne is now exploring the possibility
of treating morphine withdrawal
by using naloxone, which prevents the
binding of morphine to opiate receptors
in the brain and thereby neutralizes
the effects of the drug. In patients
undergoing withdrawal, high doses of
naloxone may prevent the painful side
effects caused by small quantities of
residual morphine in the bloodstream,
and ease the road from withdrawal to
recovery.
Developing a non-addictive pain
killer
Researchers around the world are
constantly in search of analgesic drugs
that will treat pain as effectively as
morphine, but without the addiction
and side effects that make morphine
so problematic.
Currently it is known that a small
dose of morphine combined with antidepressant
drugs can amplify the efficacy
of the morphine. Based on this principle,