Researchers at Oklahoma State University’s Center for Veterinary Health Sciences have taken the first step in finding a new treatment for an old threat, anthrax.
Researching anthrax treatment method
Researchers at Oklahoma State University's Center for Veterinary Health Sciences have taken the first step in finding a new treatment for anthrax an old threat to horses.
William Barrow, PhD, professor and Sitlington Chair in Infectious Diseases in the center’s Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, Jürg Dreier with Basilea Pharmaceutica of Basel, Switzerland, and Esther Barrow, Dr. Barrow’s veterinary lab manager and wife, are listed as the inventors on U.S. Patent 8,268,825, “Method for the Treatment of Anthrax Infections.”
Anthrax is an acute, rapidly-developing, fever-producing, infectious disease that should immediately be brought to the attention of an equine veterinarian.
In horses, anthrax may take either a pulmonary form with fever, muscle pain, respiratory distress, sweating, and shock-like symptoms, or it may take a gastrointestinal form with fever, colic, and bloody diarrhea. Common symptoms include septicemia, enteritis, and colic. Stricken animals may die within one to three days. Failure to achieve rigor mortis after death is common.
“This patent is part of an overall effort to develop a new class of antimicrobial drugs to target Bacillus anthracis or anthrax,” explains Dr. Barrow. “The development of new drugs is very important, especially for biodefense purposes in the case of a bioterrorist attack. When an enzyme is naturally resistant to the main drug now in use, new drugs are needed to overcome that resistance.”
The patent resulted from research that was funded through a National Institutes of Health/National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Grant. Funding for continuation of the work that Dr. Barrow and his team conduct is through NIH/NIAID Grant for $4 million (2010-2015).
Barrow is well known for his research. He has spent the last decade investigating defenses against drug resistance, emerging infectious diseases, drug development and drug delivery.