Revolutionising New Treatment Options for Stroke

02 August 2023

Inspired by bush ticks, leading Australian scientists from the Heart Research Institute and the University of Sydney are offering new hope to stroke sufferers by rethinking antithrombotic drugs.

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide, with 85 percent of strokes due to a blood clot restricting blood flow to the brain, also known as Acute Ischaemic Stroke (AIS).

Identification of antithrombotics that improve the clot-busting potential of thrombolytic therapy recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA), without causing bleeding, would represent a major advance in stroke therapy. 

Unfortunately, existing antithrombotic cause excessive bleeding when combined with rtPA, prohibiting their use in AIS treatment.

The Heart Research Institute’s Thrombosis team, led by Prof Shaun Jackson, and collaborators, with funding from MTPConnect’s Targeted Translation Research Accelerator (TTRA) program and TTRA Partner, UniQuest, is striving to identify anticoagulants as innovative and safer anti-clotting therapies for stroke.

The HRI research team has recently been awarded an almost $1 million Cardiovascular Research Capacity Program grant by the NSW Office for Health and Medical Research (OHMR) which aims to build on the Group’s previous success in establishing a pipeline of new stroke treatments with an improved safety profile.

The funding will allow the team to scale up their skills and resources to synthesise new chemical compounds and test these agents in pre-clinical models of stroke.