Cyclarity ' s Approach to Treating Atherosclerosis

The treatment of atherosclerosis is trapped in a rut, and has been for some time. Near all of the development in this field is focused on producing ever more innovative ways to reduce LDL-cholesterol in the bloodstream. Unfortunately, this cannot do more than modestly slow the condition; it can't reverse existing plaque to any great degree. By the time a plaque has formed, it has become a self-sustaining lesion, inflamed and attracting ever more immune cells to become overwhelmed by the toxic plaque environment and die, adding their mass to the plaque. The input of LDL-cholesterol from the bloodstream, while creating the tipping point of plaque formation in the early stages, becomes a minor contribution at that later stage of the condition. Cyclarity is one of the few groups attempting to break out of the rut, along with Repair Biotechnologies. Cyclarity is testing whether or not targeted removal of the toxic modified cholesterol known as 7-ketocholesterol can improve the state of the disrupted plaque tissue environment far enough to enable some form of repair and reversal by otherwise overwhelmed tissue maintenance systems. Since animal models would be fairly uninformative on this question, the company is instead taking a very fast path to human trials based on tissue models and safety data alone. It will be interesting to see how well this works at the end of the day. The development of therapeutics to combat atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) form...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs