ROAD TO THE CURE UPDATE NOVEMBER 2015

We have been telling you for the last 2–3 years that a La Jolla based biotech Company, ICB International, Inc., (ICBI), has developed a non-invasive technology to transport disease altering drugs across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to halt and cure brain diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. Most drugs capable of altering brain diseases cannot reach the brain. Consequently, there has not been any clinical diagnostics and disease modifying therapeutics for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases since the origin of mankind. Most of you may well be thinking that Jo Rosen and ICBI scientists have concocted a fairytale to scare the patient community and their loved ones to scam/induce some investment dollars into ICBI. After reading the after-mentioned article published by MIT-Harvard scientists, I sincerely hope that you comprehend how the blood-brain barrier had paralyzed, for centuries, global research efforts for developing therapies for brain diseases and begin to appreciate what a small Company ICBI has accomplished with just few dollars which others have not been able to accomplish after spending billions of dollars at MIT, Harvard and other big name institutions.

The question for all readers is whether you prefer a non-invasive route for drug administration into the brain developed by ICBI or via a hole through your nostril and the skull developed by MIT-Harvard? 

MIT Researchers Develop Drug Delivery technique to Bypass Blood-Brain Barrier; Breakthrough could help countless patients with neurological conditions that are currently hard to treat

Date: October 20, 2015

Source: Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary

Summary: MIT Researchers claim to have successfully prevented the development of Parkinson’s disease in a mouse using new techniques to deliver drugs across the naturally impenetrable blood-brain barrier. Their findings lend hope to patients around the world with neurological conditions that are difficult to treat due to a barrier mechanism that prevents approximately 98 percent of drugs from reaching the brain and central nervous system.

Procedure: Endoscopic skull base surgery (C) for implantation of nasal mucosal graft, which is believed to be 1000 times more porous than the blood-brain barrier. Drugs used to treat a variety of central nervous system diseases may be administered through the nose and diffused through an implanted mucosal graft (A, in red) to gain access to the brain. Under normal circumstances, there are multiple layers within the nose that block the access of pharmaceutical agents from getting to the brain including bone and the dura/arachnoid membrane, which represents part of the blood-brain barrier (B).

After endoscopic skull base surgery (C), all of these layers are removed and replaced with a nasal mucosal graft, which is 1,000 times more porous than the native blood-brain barrier. Consequently, these grafts may be used to deliver very large drugs, including proteins, which would otherwise be blocked by the blood-brain barrier.

Credit: Garyfallia Pagonis and Benjamin S. Bleier, M.D.

Researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School and Boston University have successfully shown neuroprotection in a Parkinson’s mouse model using new techniques to deliver drugs across the naturally impenetrable blood-brain barrier. Their findings, published in Neurosurgery, lend hope to patients around the world with neurological conditions that are difficult to treat due to a barrier mechanism that prevents approximately 98 percent of drugs from reaching the brain and central nervous system. “We are developing a platform that may eventually be used to deliver a variety of drugs to the brain,” said senior author Benjamin S. Bleier, M.D., of the department of otolaryngology at Mass. Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School.

“Although we are currently looking at neurodegenerative disease, there is potential for the technology to be expanded to psychiatric diseases, chronic pain, seizure disorders and many other conditions affecting the brain and nervous system down the road.” Using nasal mucosal grafting, researchers delivered glial derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), a therapeutic protein in testing for treating Parkinson’s disease, to the brains of mice.

They showed through behavioral and histological data capture that their delivery method was equivalent to direct injection of GDNF -- the current gold standard for delivering this drug in Parkinson’s disease despite its traumatic nature and high complication rates -- in diffusing drugs to the brain.

You are invited to contact Jo Rosen at Parkinson’s Resource Organization if you want information about supporting or investing in The Parkinson’s Road to the Cure. She would be proud to make this important introduction as we continue to salute these scientists forging ahead!