{"id":99635,"date":"2020-08-17T09:31:58","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T14:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/?p=99635"},"modified":"2020-09-23T15:42:33","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T20:42:33","slug":"a-better-way-to-treat-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web20.olemiss.edu\/news\/wordpress\/a-better-way-to-treat-depression\/","title":{"rendered":"A Better Way to Treat Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Thomas Werfel<\/p><\/div>\n

Two biomedical engineering<\/a> professors at the University of Mississippi have begun developing a drug delivery device that could help people who suffer from treatment-resistant depression.<\/p>\n

Glenn Walker and Thomas Werfel are collaborating to develop devices for intermittent release of LSD and related drugs. The two-year research project is being funded through the Pilot Project Program under a five-year grant (P30GM122733) awarded to the School of Pharmacy<\/a> by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, supporting the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Natural Products Neuroscience or COBRE-NPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Treatment-resistant depression is a form of depression that does not respond to standard treatments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Glenn Walker<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe purpose of this project is to see if it would be feasible to create a small, implantable drug delivery device that could treat patients with treatment-resistant depression,\u201d said Walker, professor of biomedical and electrical engineering and the project\u2019s principal investigator.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this project, we will create drug delivery devices and test them in the lab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker said some evidence shows that very low levels of drugs such as LSD might be able to treat patients with treatment-resistant depression. However, since LSD is easily abused, the researchers need to come up with a way to deliver doses that would prevent abuse by patients.<\/p>\n

Finding a creative solution for treatment-resistant depression is necessary because the disease has limited effective therapies, said Werfel, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and co-investigator.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe therapies that are effective are very intrusive, requiring many repeat visits to the doctor and lengthy procedures that necessitate psychological support by a clinical staff,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are proposing to develop a long-term, potentially curative therapy. It involves using a biomaterial implant to control the release of classical psychedelics (e.g., LSD and psilocybin).\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A vial of layered device prototypes for intermittent delivery of psychedelics. Submitted photo<\/p><\/div>\n

Basically, instead of patients taking a psychedelic drug by mouth, which isn\u2019t feasible with a psychedelic because of such issues as compliance and abuse, they would have a device implanted, which would deliver the drug \u201con demand\u201d at a preprogrammed rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also wanted to make sure that patients would receive doses on a regular schedule, about every three days,\u201d Walker said. \u201cOur device \u2013 the focus of this project \u2013 solves both of these problems.<\/p>\n

“Our ultimate vision for this idea is that a patient with treatment-resistant depression would go to the doctor’s office, get a device injected, and then they would not have to worry about taking their medication for the next several months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The devices are currently larger than what the scientists ultimately would like to implant into patients, but they hope to come up with a solution to that issue later on in the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to see if we can use microfabrication techniques to miniaturize the devices from about the size of a nickel to something closer to a grain of rice,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n

Werfel, whose expertise is in drug delivery, will be guiding the in vitro and in vivo biological testing of the devices.<\/p>\n

Treatment-resistant depression affects up to 4% of the U.S. population each year. Patients who suffer from it experience extended depressive episodes and higher rates of suicide attempts.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn average, TRD patients lose 36 workdays per year, six times that of patients with milder forms of depression,\u201d Werfel said. \u201cTRD patients also incur [around] $7,000 more in medical costs per patient per year than non-TRD patients ($29 billion-$48 billion cumulatively). As a result, there is an urgent unmet medical need for effective TRD therapies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Classical psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin have shown benefits for patients with depression for a long time, but the practical issues with implementing a therapy based on Schedule I controlled substances have prevented much progress on their use to treat patients.<\/p>\n

The FDA just granted psilocybin \u201cbreakthrough therapy\u201d (or cutting-edge-level) status based on exciting results showing that it is more effective than the current standard of care with ketamine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two biomedical engineering professors at the University of Mississippi have begun developing a drug delivery device that could help people who suffer from treatment-resistant depression. Glenn Walker and Thomas Werfel are collaborating to develop devices for intermittent release of LSD and related drugs. The two-year research project is being funded through the Pilot Project ProgramRead the story …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1406,178],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Better Way to Treat Depression - Ole Miss News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/a-better-way-to-treat-depression\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Better Way to Treat Depression - Ole Miss News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two biomedical engineering professors at the University of Mississippi have begun developing a drug delivery device that could help people who suffer from treatment-resistant depression. Glenn Walker and Thomas Werfel are collaborating to develop devices for intermittent release of LSD and related drugs. 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