Cleveland researcher gets $4.7M to create new class of drugs

A Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals researcher has received a $4.7 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for development of a new class of drugs to help soldiers work in high altitudes.

The drugs would selectively dilate blood cells that lack oxygen, enhancing soldiers’ performance at high altitudes.

The defense contract likely will generate new physiologic information on high-altitude adaption and therapeutic interventions to treat patients suffering from conditions where oxygen delivery is impaired, including heart failure, ischemic heart disease, stroke, sickle cell disease and diabetes.

“Our blood carries less oxygen at high altitudes,” said Dr. Jonathan Stamler, director of the Institute for Transformative Molecular Medicine and the Robert S. and Sylvia K. Reitman Family Foundation Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Innovation at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Harrington-McLaughlin Heart & Vascular Institute.

“There is not much we can do about it,” Stamler said. “But if we could improve blood flow in tissues, we could deliver more oxygen regardless of how much oxygen the blood carries.”

Stamler, who came from Duke University less than a year ago, discovered a protein mechanism that goes wrong in many diseases. The discovery could help speed new therapies for cardiovascular, pulmonary, musculoskeletal and neurological diseases, as well as cancer. He is the first transformative molecular medicine director at Case Western Reserve and University Hospitals.