ROAD TO THE CURE UPDATE DECEMBER 2014

The concept of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in our bodies is very elusive to most of us. Whether we are healthy or afflicted by serious brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, the word “BBB” is a foreign word for the majority of us. What is most appalling is that even individuals undergoing treatment for some of the most devastating neurodegenerative diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) have not heard about the BBB. It appears that patients have not questioned their physicians as to why they (patients) are not getting better in spite of taking numerous pills a day for their condition. Neither have the physicians taken time to explain why their patients are not getting better.

The reality is that physicians are incapable of making their Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s patients better (halt and/or cure the disease to restore normal body function) due to a physical barrier, known as the blood-brain barrier. As of today, this barrier prevents drugs capable of curing /modifying Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases from reaching the central nervous system. The brain is the only organ known to have its own security system, a network of blood vessels that allows the entry into the brain of essential nutrients while blocking other substances such as viruses, bacteria, parasites and chemicals. Unfortunately, this barrier is so effective at protecting against the passage of foreign substances into the brain that it often prevents life-saving drugs from being able to repair the injured or diseased brain. The facts are: 98% of all small molecule drugs do not cross the BBB into the central nervous system, and; Nearly 100% of macromolecule drugs such as antibodies do not reach the brain.

Discovery of the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB)

The blood-brain barrier is not an imaginative conclusion of the scientists at ICB International, Inc. Instead, novel laureate, Dr. Paul Ehrlich, discovered the blood-brain barrier in 1885 when he injected an aniline dye into the blood stream of a mouse. This dye went everywhere in the body EXCEPT the brain. The same dye when injected directly into the brain stayed in the brain and did not leak out to other organs. These observations made Dr. Ehrlich conclude that the mouse must have a physical barrier between the blood and the brain that prevented the transporting of dye from the blood to the brain and vice versa. The same barrier exists in all living beings, including humans. In most cases, meningitis is still incurable because antibiotics cannot reach the brain.

Misconception

General misconception is that since Tylenol, Aspirin, Motrin, Alcohol, Marijuana, Cocaine, L-Dopa, Aricept, etc., go to brain, all medicines must go to brain. First of all, Tylenol, Aspirin and Motrin, etc., do NOT cure any disease. They only treat symptoms of the diseases such as fever due to a viral cold or a bacterial infection. Motrin, Naprosyn, etc., can treat inflammation resulting from some disease process. Has anybody cured ear infection with Tylenol or Motrin? Ear infection is treated by antibiotics, not by Tylenol. Indeed, these drugs that are going to the brain do not alter the course of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Therefore, it is wrong to think that drugs capable of correcting the brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and Brain Cancer can reach the brain. For more information about the BBB, readers can browse through the following Scientific American article published in 2013.

Interlandi, Jeneen (2013).  Scientific American 2013 (June). “MESSING WITH” THE BLOOD: BRAIN BARRIER MAY BE KEY TO TREATING A HOST OF DISEASES A new understanding of the blood-brain barrier as a living, mutable organ may revolutionize the treatment of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s During one of his famous staining experiments of the late 1800s—the kind that would eventually lead to a cure for syphilis and a Nobel Prize for Medicine—Paul Ehrlich stumbled on a conundrum that would haunt medicine down to the present day.

When he injected dye into the bloodstream of mice, it penetrated every organ except the brain. Kidneys, livers and hearts turned a dark purplish-blue, clear and stark under his microscope, but the brain remained a pale whitish-yellow. When a student of his injected that same dye directly into the brain, the opposite happened: the brain itself turned blue, whereas the other organs did not. Clearly, the student thought, a barrier—in German, Blut-Hirn-Schranke—must exist between brain and blood.

It would take half a century and a microscope roughly 5,000 times more powerful than Ehrlich’s for anyone to actually locate this barrier, hidden as it was inside the brain’s blood vessels. The average human brain houses roughly 400 miles of such vessels. They bend and twist in an endless array of tangled loops, ultimately ensnaring every single one of the human brain’s 100 billion or so neurons. The walls of all these vessels are lined with endothelial cells. To be sure, endothelial cells line the interior of all of the body’s vasculature, but they are much more tightly packed in the brain’s vessels than they are anywhere else in the body, which explains why neither Ehrlich’s dyes nor most of the medications in existence could cross from the bloodstream into the brain.

Crossing BBB is a Necessity to Curing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases

Before one can conceive of developing successful therapy for curing brain diseases, overcoming impermeability of the BBB is the single most important factor. Unfortunately, for centuries this has been an impossible task to accomplish by global academic, governmental and pharmaceutical scientists.

What ICB International, Inc., (ICBI), has done to solve the problem of the BBB Impermeability?

ICBI has developed a technology, referred to as SMART Molecule Technology that has been unequivocally proven to cross the BBB by world-renowned scientists. The US Department of Health & Human Services, the Michael J Fox Foundation (MJFF) and many ANGEL investors have funded ICBI’s Parkinson’s program. The Company is planning to take its technology to the patients and is looking for the additional funds to accomplish this quickly.

In April 2014 we proudly introduced the scientists and their incomparable history making work on the #PARKINSON’S ROAD TO THE CURE. This remarkable science continues as they help you understand the role of the BBB in finding the cure for Parkinson’s. We invite you to contact us or them if you want information about supporting or investing in The Parkinson’s Road to the Cure. We would be proud to make this important introduction and we continue to salute our scientists as they forge ahead!