New Angiostimulator for Ischemic Heart Disease

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Therapeutic angiogenesis is a new experimental approach to ischemic heart disease. It consists on inducing the growth of collateral blood vessels in ischemic areas of the myocardium. Currently, therapeutic angiogenesis focuses on gene therapy with angiogenic proteins such as DEL-1, VEGF and FGF. Besides facing challenges specific to gene therapy, these endogenous proteins have never before been used as drugs, and their efficacy and side effects in humans are not fully understood. Here, we propose a different approach to therapeutic angiogenesis with a novel angiostimulatory small molecule isolated from a medicinal plant traditionally used for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. We have purified this compound to homogeneity, demonstrated its angiostimulatory activity ex vivo and now propose to further test its potential utility for the treatment of ischemic heart disease in the mouse hind limb ischemia model. If successful, this project will continue with further development of this angiostimulator in Phase II, and may result in the first non-gene, small-molecule drug candidate for the therapeutic angiogenesis in ischemic diseases.