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A new study says that a new technology will help identify compounds involved in heart failure.
The technology, developed by University of Minnesota's David Thomas and Razvan Cornea and Celladon Corporation's Krisztina Zsebo, lets for quicker screening of compounds associated with proteins involved in heart failure.
Chronic heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalisation and is estimated to cost the US healthcare system $ 37.2 billion in 2009. About 5.7 million people in the US have heart failure, and it adds to or causes about 290,000 deaths every year.
Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is used to measure disturbance of the calcium regulatory system, which has long been associated in cardiovascular disease.
This will provide important information on a particular drug’s probability of success early in the screening process.
"Dr. Cornea and I, along with our students, have worked for more than a decade developing methods for preparing membranes from purified components, and using FRET to detect changes in protein interactions," Thomas said, according to a Minnesota release.
"Scientists from Celladon saw the potential for drug discovery, and this resulted in a breakthrough that has added an exciting new dimension to our research programme."
However, developing new treatments is an extremely expensive and time-consuming procedure, taking nearly a decade to get regulatory approval and needing hundreds of millions of dollars, the release said.
