Ribozyme Therapy Project

Our HSV Ribozyme Therapy Team at the University of Florida has been working on a new therapy to treat HSV infections for the last 8 years. Our team consists of Alfred Lewin, Ph.D., an expert on ribozymes; Gregory Schultz, Ph.D., an expert on wound healing in the eye; Sonal Tuli, MD, an expert on the cornea and herpes infections of the eye; and David Bloom, Ph.D., an expert on the molecular biology of herpes simplex virus latency and pathogenesis. The team started work on ribozyme-based therapy for herpes simplex virus targeting a disease in the eye called herpes stromal keratitis, or HSK. This disease responds poorly to the existing herpes treatments and is the leading cause of infectious blindness in the US. The approach uses a specially designed RNA molecule called a ribozyme that destroys an Herpesvirus RNA made from the UL20 gene that required for HSV to make new viruses. After years of work, the team was able to demonstrate that this ribozyme-based therapy had potential to treat not only HSV-1 infections in the eye, but on the skin as well (J. Virology 82:7467-7474, 300. This started the push to perform the necessary preclinical tests to get approval from the FDA to conduct clinical trials.

In June 2010 the team was awarded $50,000 from the Pepsi Refresh campaign to conduct key studies needed to move this therapy forward. So far these funds have allowed the team to perform additional tests on the ribozymes and to refine the method of delivery. To date the results continue to look very encouraging and in a few months the researchers hope to have the data needed to obtain additional funding for the final phase of preclinical studies. The Pepsi Refresh Award came at a critical time and provided the much needed funds to keep work on this therapy moving forward. These studies continue to suggest that the ribozyme therapy could provide an alternative therapy to suppress recurrence of not only HSV-1, but possibly HSV-2 as well.

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MicroRNA Project with Bryan Cullen at Duke Dr. Cullen and I are currently collaborating on determining the role of the HSV-1 encoded miRNAs on HSV pathogenesis and latency. My lab is currently constructing deletions/mutations of the miRNAs in order to study their function. In order to obtain funds for testing the miRNA mutants Bryan Cullen and I will be submitting a collaborative gran

Source: CureComingSoon