Professor Sulev Koks from the Personalised Medicine Centre has been awarded a National Psoriasis Foundation Translational Research Grant to progress development of a ‘gene patch’ for the debilitating condition.
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the skin and sometimes the joints. It impacts around 2.5 per cent of the population.
Current treatments do not work well for everyone, and many patients eventually experience reduced effectiveness from existing therapies.
The research project will use antisense oligonucleotide technology, also known as a ‘gene patch’, which aims to interrupt disease-causing signals at the genetic messaging stage before harmful proteins are produced.
The research team has already developed prototype drug candidates which have shown promising results in early laboratory studies, switching off part of the targeted inflammatory pathway.
The next phase will test whether the treatment works in advanced human skin models.
Professor Sulev Koks said if successful the new treatment could greatly improve quality of life for patients.
“No previous psoriasis treatment has targeted these genetic messages in this way,” Professor Sulev said.
“By stopping inflammatory signals earlier in the disease process, we hope to be able to improve treatment precision, reduce unwanted side effects, and maintain effectiveness over long periods of time.
“We are very grateful to the National Psoriasis Foundation for their support.”
The treatment is being designed as a topical therapy applied directly to the skin, potentially avoiding injections or intravenous treatment and limiting exposure to the rest of the body.
The Personalised Medicine Centre at Murdoch University is a collaboration between the University and The Perron Institute, focusing on the development of innovative treatments.