Bladder incontinence is a functional disorder with growing consequences for the aging population. Current therapy includes drug treatment aimed at antagonizing the cholinergic input to the bladder. There are severe drawbacks to drug therapy primarily due to the lack of specificity of the drugs which result in side effects, many of which cannot be tolerated by the elderly. We propose to design novel pharmaceutica agents which are both efficacious and highly specific. Using rDNA technologies we will design peptomementic molecules which reconstruct specific sites of receptor interaction with cellular metabolic machinery and, as a result, mimic receptor action. This will provide a new approach for the rational design of more specific drugs to address problems of the autonomic nervous system.
