The Need

Metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes are a major health concern that have impacted hundreds of millions of adults worldwide. Current pharmaceutical therapies for type 2 diabetes have been associated with adverse reactions including weight gain and increased risk of infection, liver failure, and cardiovascular disease. Both type 2 diabetes and the side effects caused by current antidiabetic drugs have been found correlated to activation of the inflammatory pathway. Thus, it is critical to find new agents with possible antidiabetic and hypoglycemic effects with fewer adverse impacts.

The Technology

Researchers from The Ohio State University, led by Dr. Carcache de Blanco, have created a natural product derivative from a highly promising natural product that was isolated from a plant used in traditional medicine. This compound was found to exhibit significant activity when compared with the current known drugs (e.g., Rosiglitazone used as control), and which are antidiabetic drugs that work as insulin sensitizers. Furthermore, the novel natural product derivative(s) designed by Dr. Carcache de Blanco’s research team were evaluated in vivo for potential against different related targets, using a zebrafish model, which confirmed the potential for further development of the natural product compounds and derivatives for metabolic and inflammatory disease(s).

Commercial Applications

• Diabetes treatments
• Wide-ranging biomedical therapies

Benefits/Advantages

• Higher selectivity of targets associated to diabetes and inflammation
• Reduction in off-target drug effects and side effects