At the recent 2022 Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine & Urogenital Reconstruction Winter Meeting, Min Dong, PhD, presented a talk on the latest frontiers in therapeutic toxins for urologic conditions. In speaking with Urology Times®, he discusses the main points of this presentation along with the potential impact of onabotulinumtoxinA (Botox) therapies on future urologic treatment. Dong is an associate professor of urology at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Please summarize the main points of your presentation.

I mainly introduced the latest research going on in my laboratory on 2 aspects. The first part of my talk is on engineering of botulinum neurotoxins aiming to generate a new generation of therapeutic toxins that will improve the efficacy of [current] Botox [therapies]. The second part of my talk [focused] on this newly developed technology from my lab for treating botulinum neurotoxin intoxication. We call it [a] "Botox reversal agent," in a sense. So, this is the best in activated toxins, [which use a] detoxified botulinum neurotoxin molecule as a drug carrier, and then use it to send neutralizing antibodies into motor nerve terminals as a way to neutralize botulinum neurotoxins that already entered the motor nerve terminals. That worked out very well in mice models and achieved a fairly quick reversal of muscle paralysis induced by Botox. I'm very excited to introduce that to the field.

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