Quinacrine shows promise as Mad cow treatment

San Francisco - Doctors at a San Francisco hospital have treatedtwo patients - one with the human form of mad cow disease, and the secondwith Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - by digging up an antiquated drug.

The two were treated with quinacrine, an obsolete malaria drug widelyused during World War II to treat malarial infections of the brain. Followingthe war, newer drugs replaced it.

Recently, however, researchers found in a random screening process thatthe drug killed mouse cells infected with the agent that causes mad cowdisease, and they decided to test it quickly in people. A clinical trialis scheduled to start this fall.

Dr. Bruce Miller of the School of Medicine at the University of California,San Francisco, says researchers are still "far from a cure."

"We are all hoping the drug will have some efficacy, but our eyesare wide open," he says.

Details of how the new use for the old drug was discovered are publishedin a recent issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.