MODULATION OF SMALL BIOMOLECULE LEVELS FOR THE TREATMENT OF PRIAPISM AND ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION

 

Market:  Approximately forty percent of those suffering from sickle cell disease display priapism.  Additionally, leukemia patients and those taking various therapeutics, from antidepressants to corticosteroids, are also at risk for developing this disorder.  The mechanisms that cause priapism are poorly understood but are believed to involve complex neurological and vascular factors acting in concert.  Conversely, erectile dysfunction affects some ten million men and has remained in the news due in large part to the improving treatments for this disorder, and growing awareness of its causes and effects.

Competitors and Current Problems:  At this time, treatments for priapism are limited to a few drugs, aspiration of the accumulated blood, and the placement of shunts in the patient.  If left untreated, the excess blood may become ischemic or thrombitic and leave the patient with fibrotic tissue and, eventually, a loss of erectile function.  Given the number of sickle cell disease patients and the ever increasing number of patients on the various drugs that can cause priapism, the need for an effective treatment to this, often embarrassing, disorder is gravely needed.

Additionally, causes of erectile dysfunction are broad and the popular drugs address some of these causes, while not addressing others.  Also, some of the side effects of these treatments have caused concern recently.  Clearly, there is a need to keep broadening the treatment options for this disorder, and a single system which could explain the causes priapism and ED while offering a treatment for each would be a welcome advancement.     

 

The Technology:  Scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, have been working on this problem, and have detailed the biochemical pathway which may cause both disorders.  Through the modulation of a single biomolecule, the researches have been able to treat both priapism and ED in an in vivo system.  This method of treating priapism and erectile dysfunction shows great promise for treating these two disorders, and gives patients the hope of better treatments in the future.      

 

NON-CONFIDENTIAL TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION

The preceding is intended to be a non-confidential summary of a novel technology created at the University of Texas Health Science center at Houston (UTHSCH), for which the University has obtained patent protection. 

UTHSCH Ref. No. 2006-0047

Inventors: Drs. Yang Xia, Michael Blackburn, and Rodney Kellems

Patent Status: provisional patent application filed

License Available: world-wide; exclusive or non-exclusive

 

To obtain further information about this technology, please contact:
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Email: uthsch-otm@uth.tmc.edu