botox jab could ease arthritis and cancer without side ... · botox jab could ease arthritis and...

Botox jab could ease arthritis and cancerwithout side effects: Single injection couldoffer pain relief for months

New molecule created by Sheffield University's Professor BazbekDavletovCould provide pain-numbing effect of Botox without freezing the musclesCreated by fusing elements of Botox with those from the tetanus bug

By Fiona Macrae, Science Correspondent

PUBLISHED: 00:57, 30 October 2013 | UPDATED: 03:33, 30 October 2013

A new drug created from Botox by a Sheffield University researcher could providemonths of pain relief (file photo)

Botox, best known for smoothing out wrinkles, could also help soothe the pain of cancer, arthritisand migraines – without any side effects.

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Sufferers of chronic back pain and women who have given birth by Caesarean section could alsobenefit from the ‘super-Botox’ jab.

A single injection could provide pain relief for months – removing the need for patients to takeseveral daily doses of powerful tablets – and it could be injected into any part of the body.

Charities said the drug, invented by a researcher at Sheffield University, could revolutionise thetreatment of pain.

The main ingredient of the Botox used to prevent wrinkles is a bacterial poison known asbotulinum.

It works by preventing nerve cells from talking to muscles, which in turn stops muscles moving andwrinkles developing.

It can also stop pain signals from being transmitted for months at a time.

However, fears that it will paralyse the area being treated have prevented it from being widely usedfor pain relief.

To get round this, Sheffield University researcher Professor Bazbek Davletov took the pain-relievingpart of Botox and ‘stapled’ it to a friendly part of a similar poison produced by the tetanus bug.

The tetanus toxin ferries the pain-reliever to the spinal cord, where it stops pain signals being sentto the brain.

The professor said: ‘In effect, we engineer pain relief by taking only good parts of toxic molecules.’

Animal trials have had encouraging results and, if large-scale trials on people are successful, thedrug could be on the market in as little as three years.

Professor Davletov designed the drug while working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology inCambridge.


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Painkiller: The new 'super-Botox' drug could help treat sufferers of chronic pain (filephoto)

He said: ‘Currently painkillers relieve lingering pain only temporarily and often have unwantedside-effects. An injection of this new molecule at the site of pain could potentially relieve pain formany months.’

And he added that a public which is willing to have injections for cosmetic purposes would not besqueamish about receiving medicine in the same way.

Migraine sufferers are likely to be the first to benefit.

Normal Botox can already be used as a treatment for crippling headaches, but fears that it willparalyse the face mean that many sufferers miss out.

'An injection of this new molecule at the site of pain could


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potentially relieve pain for many months'- Professor Bazbek Davletov, Sheffield University

Cancer patients would also be high on the list as the side-effects of powerful painkillers such asmorphine can be unbearable.

Drugs widely used to ease the pain of arthritis can raise the risk of heart attacks and around one infive people who have a major operation are left in pain for several years.

Professor Davletov, who reports his research in the journal Bioconjugate Chemistry, hopes the drugwill cost around £1,000 a year, making it cheap enough for use on the NHS.

Martin Ledwick, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Alongside developing new treatments for cancer,finding new and better ways of controlling pain is very important.

‘If this new approach proves to be effective and have fewer side effects, it has the potential to beextremely useful to cancer patients and others with chronic pain.’

Dr Fayyaz Ahmed, a neurologist, is a trustee for charity The Migraine Trust and chairman of theBritish Association for the Study of Headache.

He said: ‘This sounds interesting and innovative, and if successful in what it is meant to achievemay revolutionise the way we currently treat pain and other neurological disorders.’

Many A-list celebrities, including Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Aniston, Cindy Crawford and DanniiMinogue, have admitted having Botox in the past.

Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd

Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group

© Associated Newspapers Ltd


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