Grant: Project Grant

Clozapine is a drug that is reserved for schizophrenic patients that don't respond to first-line drugs. While it has many benefits, such as decreasing suicidality, it has some potentially harmful side effects. One of these is reducing white blood cells to dangerously low levels. Because of its toxicity, patients require regular blood monitoring to ensure their safety. It is unclear how the side effects happen, but clozapine is known to attach to normal proteins, which the body may recognize as foreign. We are developing a new technique to identify the proteins clozapine binds to and have found a drug that decreases the binding of clozapine to proteins. Also, we have discovered that clozapine can increase the level of protective proteins. Although we have these tools, we require funding to advance our knowledge to understand better how to decrease clozapine from attaching to proteins. We believe that this will lead to less chance of harmful side effects and safer use of clozapine. Clozapine is considered underused because of its side effects. The research in this proposal can help utilize clozapine more effectively for the benefit of patients that need it.