“Our breakthrough in hERG-related long QT syndrome 2 could potentially help to accelerate the development of new cures very much faster, perhaps within 5 to 8 years. It is a shortcut compared to the conventional drug development route which could take 10 to 15 years,” said Dr Winston Shim,"
“Currently, we have been successful in providing a medicine to treat long QT syndrome 2. Moving forward, we can use similar disease models to introduce a gene that will correct that particular mutation in the body,” said Dr Shim, “If that is successful, there is a possibility of permanently reversing the genetic condition without the need for any long term medication.”
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"Conventional drug testing can be a long and laborious process; it can take about 15 years to progress from a discovery to a commercially available drug.
The breakthrough is expected to quicken the quest for a cure. Prof Wong said, “Using this platform we can potentially halve the time required for drug testing by doing away with multiple drug screenings. We were able to focus our search for drugs that only affect the hERG mechanism instead of testing multiple drugs. Previously, we used computer simulations, but now we can show what happens during drug testing on actual live cells that mimic the disease. Results can be seen right there in the petri dish.”
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