First-in-class MKK4 inhibitors enhance liver regeneration, prevent liver failure | Hacker News Reader

First-in-class MKK4 inhibitors enhance liver regeneration, prevent liver failure

cell.com

111 pointsbirriel14 comments

As a non-biologist, interesting on the molecular work to get from vemurafenib to HRX215. Modern biochemistry for drug discovery is fascinating!

Also, small sample size, but the 85% hepatectomy in pig model results are interesting, where liver efficacy seems to be boosted enough to prevent systemic collapse post-surgery, at a normally lethal removal amount?

That's a pretty smart experiment for "Does this drug do what we think it does, or are we misreading other results?"

Soon restaurants and bars will hand these out free, along with statins, with every cake, pie, and alcoholic beverage.

Statins have dangerous downsides; they give some people uncontrollable anger.

This souns a lot like ethanol.

Mechanism is different though. Statins work by reducing cholesterol in your blood, but you need that for things like your brain.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200108-the-medications-...

It makes some people very mellow as well.

more concerning are the effects on muscle tissue

Technically they could be doing that with NAC already. But as long as people aren't binge drinking, it's not really a problem.

I'm pretty sure NAC is sold at a lot of bars but it's not a liver cell regenerative.

Yeah, but is a protective (technically a precrusor). So you are protecting the cells from destruction so that you don't need to regenerate them.

I've actually never seen NAC at bars. Is there a place this is common? I think the FDA is proposing a crackdown on NAC too, but I'm not sure where that stands.

> I've actually never seen NAC at bars.

Never on its own, but in hangover prevention concoctions.

I recall the FDA talking about cracking down but so far it hasn't seemed to manifest.

I appreciated seeing an article on the other end of the spectrum from the dark matter skepticism on sciencealert.com

Is this already available?

Fourth bullet point right at the top is that they've just completed a phase 1 trial. So, outside of the trial, no.

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