HOUSTON – The Zika epidemic started raging in 2015, terrifying the world with images of newborns with terrible birth defects.
One researcher, originally from Brazil, is using brain stem cells to find a drug that could treat or even cure infected people.
Dr. Alysson Muotri, and Stem Cell Program director, never thought he’d find a potential cure for Zika in his stem cell lab at UC San Diego School of Medicine. He started searching for a virus like Zika and he found one in early 2016.
“When we aligned the genome or the genetic material from the hepatitis C virus and the Zika virus, we noticed that they are from the same family and they share a region that is very similar between these two,” said Muotri.
It’s the region the viruses use to replicate. Muotri tested the hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir on brain stem cell models he calls “mini brains.”
One photo shows healthy brain cells, another shows that Zika kills the cells and sofosbuvir kept the virus from killing brain cells. Animal tests gave the same results.
Muotri explained, “The moms got very clean from the virus. There is no circulating virus in the body, and as a consequence, the fetuses are protected.”
Dr. Miguel Del Campo, a clinical geneticist at the UC San Diego School of Medicine has worked with Zika moms and babies since the beginning of the epidemic. Most research is focused on a vaccine, so he’s encouraged by the possibility of a treatment.
“If we can prevent infection or we can decrease the magnitude of the consequences in the baby’s brain, that’ll be great,” Del Campo said.
Muotri knows it’s early, but he's hopeful.
“The drug seems to work really nice, and it is a drug that is already available. So it encourages us to move on into clinical trials,” Muotri shared.
Muotri says it’ll take three to four months to get access to sofosbuvir and to start human clinical trials. Muotri is excited it’s only taken two years from proving Zika caused the birth defects to starting clinical trials for a potential cure. American mosquitoes are most active during dusk hours, and will come out of hibernation at 50 degrees.
University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston has a competing drug for the Zika virus. UTMB researchers warn the hepatitis C drug targets the liver and they say Zika affects different organs.
UTMB’s vaccine proved to be successful in animals and they are currently waiting for approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials in people. Sofosbuvir has not begun human trials yet.
Learn more about UTMB’s vaccine and how to protect unborn babies.