Iranian Researchers Develop Platform to Discover New Drugs from Biological Sources
“We succeeded in designing a biodiscovery platform (discovery of new drugs from biological sources) for the treatment of diabetes,” Yasser Tahamtani, the head of the Metabolic Health Research Center of Royan Research Institute, told ANA.
“The platform helps us to test natural compounds taken from medicinal plants on 3-4 mm diabetic fish models to find out which of the natural compounds has an anti-diabetic effect, which is called the drug discovery platform of natural compounds, and it has not been developed in Iran so far, and it was launched for the first time at Royan Diabetes Center,” he added.
Tahamtani described the platform as a promising event for scientists and researchers in Iran to be able to use the same model on other diseases like the Alzheimer's, heart diseases, liver diseases, etc.
“This basic technology, using the country's endemic plant, can discover a molecule that is effective in the treatment of diabetes and it revolutionizes the pharmaceutical industry,” he said.
Iranian researchers at Royan Research Institute had also earlier this year succeeded in production of a polymer dressing which can be used to treat diabetic wounds.
“In addition to the treatment of diabetic wounds, the new dressings have an effective role on bedsores or pressure and cavity wounds,” Hamed Da’emi, a member of the scientific board of Royan Research Institute, told ANA.
He underlined that the dressing can be used for treatment of different types of wounds, and said, “A special dressing exists for burns and vascular wounds, each based on specific conditions, but no dressings have yet been produced for these types of wounds in Iran, and now we have produced it for the first time in the country.”
Da’emi noted that the effectiveness of the dressing has been tested on several patients and it will enter the clinical trial phase in the future, adding that doctors have confirmed that the quality of this dressing is equal to foreign products.
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