The Rounds Updates in health care

Touch-sensing protein could pave way for new gut treatments

Chronic pain associated with gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome could be treated by targeting the receptor responsible for sense of touch and temperature, new research reveals.

Study

A new peer-reviewed research paper in Vaccines has examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns on the Australian economy. Published by Biointelect and the Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University, with the support of Pfizer Australia, the research demonstrates the positive economic and societal effects of the population-wide COVID-19 vaccinations rollout.

The research demonstrated that without vaccinations the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns were estimated to have impacted the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Australia by an estimated $395 billion.

The timely rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations is estimated to have reduced the impact of the pandemic on the economy to an estimated $214 billion — resulting in a positive incremental benefit of $181 billion, according to the paper.

The COVID-19 vaccinations rollout was also estimated to have contributed to large positive effects for tourism exports ($28 billion), education exports ($26 billion), employment (142,000 jobs) and government finances ($259 billion).

While the vaccines were rigorously tested for efficacy and safety, the study outlines the unique considerations of the pandemic resulting in the rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations. This is in contrast to the typical formal health technology assessment of value which generally only considers the direct patient health and healthcare system-related costs. Reflecting on the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic, publication co-author Jennifer Herz, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Biointelect, said, “If the COVID-19 vaccines had been assessed under normal circumstances using the typical formal value assessment criteria and processes, a report by Shawview showed that approval could have taken up to 1375 days and we would not have experienced the positive benefits of faster societal and economic recovery.” Hertz said this demonstrates how important the process put in place for the COVID-19 vaccines was and it’s a credit to the government and the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

“Our experience from the pandemic shows we should be thinking more broadly about the benefits of faster access to all available vaccines to our economy and society and consider the wider value new vaccines can provide,” she added.

Pfizer Australia and New Zealand Managing Director Anne Harris said the publication is further evidence that the health of our nation directly underpins the health of our economy.

“It also demonstrates the importance of preventive health and ongoing vaccination as a weapon in the arsenal against COVID-19 and future viral threats.”

A team led by Professor Hongzhen Hu at Washington University and Professor Nick Spencer at Flinders University has identified the presence of Piezo2 — the subject of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and known to be responsible for sensing light touch on our skin — in the colon.

“In discovering that this receptor is also in our gut, there’s the potential that selectively targeting these channels could be used for long-term silencing of pain sensations from internal organs, without the need for frequent consumption of opiate pain medications,” said Spencer, a Matthew Flinders Professor in the College of Medicine and Public Health.

“Chronic pain from internal organs, such as the gut or bladder, is notoriously difficult to treat. Opiates, including morphine and their derivates, have been commonly used to treat a variety of types of pain but visceral pain doesn’t respond well to the treatment and the drugs are highly addictive with a multitude of side effects.”

The availability of selective pain medications for the gut has been hindered by a lack of understanding about how sensory nerves communicate pain sensations from the gut to the brain.

“It was previously known that many different ion channels are located on the ‘pain-sensing’ neurons that communicate from the gut to the brain, but our study, published in the journal Neuron, has now identified the major ion channel in the colon that responds to mechanical stimulation leading to the sensation of pain,” Spencer said.

“Furthermore, we have discovered that the major ion channel that responds to this mechanical pain is a member of the Piezo ion channel, specifically Piezo2.

“From this knowledge we can focus on targeting these channels to silence the pain sensations and hopefully produce a treatment for visceral pain, common in conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, endometriosis or abdominal cancers, while avoiding the devastating side effects of opioids.”

The research was funded by grants from the US National Institutes of Health and the National Health and Medical Research Foundation.