URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Spring_2015_Melissa-McCarthy

Treating Diverse Diseases

by Jamie Samons

Fatemeh Akhlaghi, professor & Ernest Mario distinguished chair in pharmaceutics at the University of Rhode Island (URI), has a mission: to help reduce the incidence of alcohol use disorder by developing new medications. “Twelve percent of Americans suffer from alcohol use disorder at some point in their lives and there are very few FDA- approved drugs for treatment,” says Akhlaghi, adding that the United States leads the world in drug development, but the path from development to therapeutic use may take years. A new program at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) encourages researchers to explore novel therapeutic uses for existing drugs, specifically for populations with unmet medical needs. Akhlaghi is convinced that people dealing with alcohol use disorder meet that criteria, and she is among the first researchers in the country to study drug repurposing with financial support from the NIH. Akhlaghi and collaborator, Dr. Lorenzo Leggio, section chief at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and Adjunct Associate Professor at Brown University, joined eight other research teams in securing funding in 2013 from the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). NCATS was established in 2011 with the mission to deliver effective treatments to patients more efficiently by leveraging relationships among academia, government, industry and patient advocacy organizations. The research teams are focusing

on diseases as diverse as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, muscular dystrophy, and, as in Akhlaghi’s project, alcohol use disorder. Akhlaghi specializes in diabetes research; Leggio focuses on addiction and alcoholism. Together, they have undertaken a review of the amino acid peptide ghrelin, traditionally associated with stimulating appetite and food intake. Akhlaghi and Leggio speculate that ghrelin receptor antagonism may represent a new treatment for patients suffering from alcohol use disorder. This grant follows previous research performed by Leggio proving that intravenous ghrelin administration acutely increases craving for alcohol in alcoholic individuals. Their $1.65 million NIH grant studies the effect of an already- developed ghrelin-receptor antagonist to reduce alcohol cravings. “Ultimately, I want to help develop a new treatment to aid people dealing with alcohol use disorder,” Akhlaghi says, noting that her experience with diabetic patients greatly influences the work on this project. “When we develop a system whereby we can predict drug exposure in the patient, we are then equipped to individualize medication to each specific case. Not only do we enhance our chances of success with drug response, we also minimize adverse effects.” The NCATS chose Akhlaghi and Leggio’s project due to its widespread applicability and promising potential. “The physical proximity of URI to the pharmaceutical centers of Boston and Groton enhances our research,” Akhlaghi says. In fact, the ghrelin-receptor antagonist at the center of their project was developed as a diabetes and obesity treatment by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, in the company’s Cambridge,

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