Celebrating
the establishment of the Konishi-MUSC Institute for Inflammation Research
are from left Allen P. Kaplan, M.D., director of the Konishi-MUSC Institute
for Inflammation Research and professor of medicine at MUSC, Tsutomu Nakamura,
Ph.D., executive managing director of the Institute of Bio-active science
of Nippon Zoki, Dr. Ray Greenberg, MUSC vice president for academic affairs
and provost, and Dr. Layton McCurdy, MUSC vice president for medical affairs
and dean of the College of Medicine.
A drug with the potential for relieving a wide range of afflictions, including allergies, asthma, rheumatic diseases and Alzheimer’s disease could become a reality in the United States as a result of a new collaborative agreement between MUSC and a major Japanese research and development pharmaceutical company.
The Konishi-MUSC Institute for Inflammation Research was established May 19 in a ceremony which included the planting of a Japanese red maple tree on the horseshoe of the MUSC campus.
Dr.
Tsutomu Nakamura plants a Japanese red maple tree on the MUSC campus while
Dr. Allen P. Kaplan observes. The tree planting was among the events celebrating
the establishment of the Konishi-MUSC Institute for Inflammation Research.
A South Carolina crape myrtle has already been planted in front of the corporate headquarters of the Institute of Bioactive Science of Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical Company near Osaka.
Nippon Zoki celebrated its 60th anniversary this year and is one of a handful of pharmaceutical companies in Japan which is engaged in full-scale research and development of bioprotective and bioactive substances which are produced under pathological conditions.
“These trees symbolize a lasting and productive relationship between our American academic institution and the Japanese company with a proven track record of drug research and development,” said MUSC president Dr. James B. Edwards. “The collaboration brings together scientists, physicians and business leaders from two cultures for a project that has the potential to benefit mankind.”
Under the initial agreement, Nippon Zoki will provide approximately $3 million to support the work of Allen P. Kaplan, M.D., professor of medicine at MUSC. Kaplan will host rotating scientists from the Nippon Zoki laboratories. The agreement is a culmination of more than a decade of effort between Kaplan and Jin-emon Konishi, president of Nippon Zoki.
The work centers on Neurotropin, an analgesic, anti-inflammatory medication with unique properties developed by Nippon Zoki and available commercially for more than 40 years in Japan and more recently, in China.
In Japan, it is the drug of choice for reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a painful disorder with neurovascular abnormalities and limb atrophy. Neurotropin works on both the nervous and immune system with autoregulatory capability.
“This drug has incredible potential for use in the United States for a wide range of conditions currently relieved by analgesics and anti-in-flammatory drugs,” said Kaplan. “Its mechanism is unique in that it blocks a pain-and inflammation-causing sequence of events related to formation of a major mediator of these processes known as bradykinin. There is no drug available with this ability. It is also a very safe product, having negligible side effects.”
Kaplan said that this drug could prove useful, either by itself or in combination with other drugs, in cases where medications currently available in the United States are not effective. It also has potential in the treatment of Alzheimer’s diseases.
Originally Alzheimer’s was thought to be a neuro-degenerative disease with abnormal proteins in the brain tissues and around blood vessels in the brain. Recent research shows that there is a multifaceted inflammatory component to the disease.
Kaplan has had a 12-year relationship with Nippon Zoki, beginning during his tenure at SUNY-Stony Brook. He has already made a great deal of progress in elucidating the mechanism of action of Neurotropin. As director of the new Konishi-MUSC Institute for Inflammation Research he will:
- continue general research on the inflammation process.
- broaden the studies of the inflammatory mechanism to a wide variety of human diseases, and
- study Neurotropin both in the test tube and in the body, first to learn more about it on a molecular basis and eventually move toward clinical trials aimed at gaining approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.