Russian Scientists Find Molecular Basis for New Painkillers

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian scientists have found molecules that could form the basis of new non-addictive painkillers, Russia’s science and higher education ministry said.

Progress was achieved by experts of the Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and the Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the RAS, both located in St. Petersburg.

"There are currently no safe and effective analgesics in the arsenal of practical medicine, although the demand for them is huge: hundreds of millions of people around the world suffer from chronic pain," Dr. Boris Krylov, Principal Investigator at Pavlov Institute of Physiology, said.

Krylov noted that patients with acute pain, cancer pain and chronic pain syndrome are prescribed opiate-type drugs and sedatives, which leads to irreversible negative side effects and to the opioid crisis.

In the course of the experiment, the experts traced the mechanism of specific binding of the attacking molecule of a short peptide. The molecule, synthesized in two forms, is able to specifically reduce the functional activity of the slow sodium channel, which makes it a promising candidate for the role of analgesic medicinal substances.

According to physiologists, the structure of analgesic peptide substances, consisting of exceptionally short peptides, can be absolutely safe for health.