Rethinking thalidomide.

Rethinking Thalidomide New research indicates that the controversial drug thalidomide, which caused severe birth deformities when taken as a sedative and hypnotic by pregnant women in the 1960s, may be useful in treating diseases that cause blindness. Robert D'Amato, a researcher at the Children's Hospital at Harvard Medical School, came across thalidomide while searching for drugs to treat two diseases that cause blindness, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. Both diseases cause excess growth of blood vessels which burst in the eye and destroy vision. D'Amato, an ophthalmologist with a Ph.D. in neuroscience, said that in looking for a drug that stops blood vessel growth, or an angiogenesis inhibitor, he realized such a drug would have left a trail of clues. It occurred to him that an angiogenesis inhibitor would cause menstrual periods to stop, as well as cause birth defects. He conducted a medical literature search for drugs that caused these side effects, and hit upon thalidomide. "Thalidomide was one drug that fit the profile, because it had the appropriate side effects for an angiogenesis inhibitor," he said. D'Amato theorized that the reason thalidomide causes birth defects is that it acts during angiogenesis to affect blood vessels of fetuses. He said that for 30 years, scientists had been trying to figure out how thalidomide affects fetuses, but no one had studied blood vessels. It has only been in the last 10 years that scientists have been able to grow blood vessels in cultures to study them. D'Amato set out to prove that thalidomide is indeed an angiogenesis inhibitor, and as such may present a possible treatment for macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy results from high blood sugar levels that lead to a scarcity of blood in the retina. To compensate, the -Ci 2 e