Painkillers without deadly side effects developed
Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have created a new drug that blocks pain without triggering potentially deadly side effects of current prescription painkillers.
Researchers, including Aashish Manglik from Stanford University, custom-engineered the drug from scratch, using computational techniques to explore more than four trillion different chemical interactions. They used the atomic structure of the brain’s “morphine receptor” to develop the drug candidate that blocked pain as effectively as morphine in mouse experiments, but did not share the potentially deadly side effects typical of opioids. the drug did not interfere with breathing – the main cause of death in overdoses of prescription painkillers as well as street narcotics like heroin – or cause constipation, another common opioid side effect, researchers said.
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