AUCKLAND SCIENTIST STUDIES THE REAL DOPE

New research into cannabis may help find a new drug for Aids and cancer
patients.

A team at Auckland's Liggins Institute is exploring the active chemical in
cannabis - tetrahydrocannabinol or THC - in a bid to find a drug that
produces the therapeutic effects of the raw material without the side-effects.

In the interests of science, research scientist Dr Michelle Glass has a
licence to possess and import THC. But despite the abundance of good
quality local produce on the underground market, she has to bring the drug
in from off-shore. And until it arrives, Glass is making do with synthetics
- - with all experiments conducted in test-tubes.

It's well known that cannabis can stimulate the appetite and suppress
nausea in Aids patients and those receiving chemotherapy, says Glass. Other
studies have shown that cannabis can help reduce spastic attacks in
multiple sclerosis patients, as well as ease phantom limb pain, she adds.

Aided by a grant from the Auckland Medical Research Foundation, Glass will
spend the next two years trying to find compounds that will produce the
positive effects of cannabis without the unwanted ones.

When patients smoke cannabis, the THC binds to sites in the brain which
trigger the activation of proteins which produce different physiological
responses.

The team wants to find out if they can alter the structure of the
cannabis-like substances so only one family of proteins is activated -
those with only positive effects.

The Auckland University-trained scientist, now also a senior lecturer in
pharmacology at the university's School of Medicine, is a shining example
of the brain gain. Glass returned to New Zealand and the Liggins Institute
last year after spending five years at the National Institute of Health in
Washington DC.

She turned her back on an abundance of funding and her own laboratory to
return to the uncertain world of medical research in her homeland, where
grants are always hard to come by.

Her present research is an extension of her US studies and, especially
post-September 11, she says she is sure she made the right decison.

- - As well as the Auckland Medical Research Foundation grant of $50,000 a
year for two years, Glass has received a prestigious Marsden Grant which
will extend her studies further to morphine and other opiate-related compounds.