Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Michael Racke is the Medical Director at Quest Advanced Neurology, which is extending the options for neurologic diagnoses by looking for biomarkers in blood tests.

Michael explains, "And now, we're very much involved in developing plasma-based biomarkers to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease was a disorder that was initially diagnosed pathologically. You had to find the plaque and tangles in the brain at autopsy. Over the last 20 years, they've been able to show that with spinal fluid testing, you're able to identify changes in the cerebral spinal fluid suggestive of Alzheimer's disease. And now, we're also able to do that with a blood test."

"And for example, one of the ways that people were first able to do an evaluation for Alzheimer's disease in living people was to do a PET scan and actually demonstrate that you could do an imaging test that would show the beta amyloid plaques."

"So, Alzheimer's disease was diagnosed by finding these plaques. The plaques are caused by aggregation of peptides of beta amyloid. And then the other thing was the neurofibrillary tangle. And that's actually the aggregation of a molecule called tao within neurons. And the combination of these two things results in the death of neurons and the loss of synapses, which eventually leads to the cognitive dysfunction that you see in Alzheimer's disease."

#QuestDiagnostics #Alzheimers #Dementia #Biomarkers #BloodBiomarkers #PlasmaBiomarkers #NeurologicalDiseases #LewyBodies #LewyBodyDementia

questdiagnostics.com

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Dr. Michael Racke is the Medical Director at Quest Advanced Neurology, which is extending the options for neurologic diagnoses by looking for biomarkers in blood tests.

Michael explains, "And now, we're very much involved in developing plasma-based biomarkers to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease was a disorder that was initially diagnosed pathologically. You had to find the plaque and tangles in the brain at autopsy. Over the last 20 years, they've been able to show that with spinal fluid testing, you're able to identify changes in the cerebral spinal fluid suggestive of Alzheimer's disease. And now, we're also able to do that with a blood test."

"And for example, one of the ways that people were first able to do an evaluation for Alzheimer's disease in living people was to do a PET scan and actually demonstrate that you could do an imaging test that would show the beta amyloid plaques."

"So, Alzheimer's disease was diagnosed by finding these plaques. The plaques are caused by aggregation of peptides of beta amyloid. And then the other thing was the neurofibrillary tangle. And that's actually the aggregation of a molecule called tao within neurons. And the combination of these two things results in the death of neurons and the loss of synapses, which eventually leads to the cognitive dysfunction that you see in Alzheimer's disease."

#QuestDiagnostics #Alzheimers #Dementia #Biomarkers #BloodBiomarkers #PlasmaBiomarkers #NeurologicalDiseases #LewyBodies #LewyBodyDementia

questdiagnostics.com

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Dr. Guenther Koehne is the Deputy Director and Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Hematologic Oncology at the Baptist Health South Florida Miami Cancer Institute. They are part of a clinical trial for an approach that protects healthy cells from the toxic side-effects of targeted blood cancer treatments with a focus on acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Guenther explains," And then, we have the opportunity to administer medications or CAR-T cells, for example, post transplantation, that are specifically targeting CD33, which then presumably allows us to specifically target residual leukemia cells."

"So, my institution, Miami Cancer Institute, and before that, I was at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where I implemented the purification of stem cells from the stem cell product, from the donor stem cell product, allowing to deplete the T cells and other cells that were not necessarily needed for a successful transplant while we have a purified stem cell population. And on this clinical trial, we can now use the purified stem cells and send them to a specified laboratory to silence or down regulate the expression of CD33, using CRISPR technology so that the end product after this step will include a donor-derived stem cell population that is CD33 negative."

#MiamiCancerInstitute #VorBio #CellTherapy #BloodCancers #AML #AcuteMyeloidLeukemia #AML #Leukemia #ClinicalTrial #Miami

miamicancerinstitute.com

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Dr. Guenther Koehne is the Deputy Director and Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Hematologic Oncology at the Baptist Health South Florida Miami Cancer Institute. They are part of a clinical trial for an approach that protects healthy cells from the toxic side-effects of targeted blood cancer treatments with a focus on acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Guenther explains," And then, we have the opportunity to administer medications or CAR-T cells, for example, post transplantation, that are specifically targeting CD33, which then presumably allows us to specifically target residual leukemia cells."

"So, my institution, Miami Cancer Institute, and before that, I was at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where I implemented the purification of stem cells from the stem cell product, from the donor stem cell product, allowing to deplete the T cells and other cells that were not necessarily needed for a successful transplant while we have a purified stem cell population. And on this clinical trial, we can now use the purified stem cells and send them to a specified laboratory to silence or down regulate the expression of CD33, using CRISPR technology so that the end product after this step will include a donor-derived stem cell population that is CD33 negative."

#MiamiCancerInstitute #VorBio #CellTherapy #BloodCancers #AML #AcuteMyeloidLeukemia #AML #Leukemia #ClinicalTrial #Miami

miamicancerinstitute.com

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Dr. Judy Chou is the President and CEO of AltruBio which is developing novel immunomodulators to treat immunological diseases such as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their first-in-class agnostic antibody has a unique mechanism to regulate T cell homeostasis. Currently, there is a clinical trial for SR-aGVHD, steroid-refractory acute graft-host disease and an investigation is underway into using their second-generation molecule to treat ulcerative colitis.

Judy explains, "So we have this specific approach, only targeting those activated or the so-called over-activated T cell. So when the T cell is supposed to come down to quieten and to bring back to homeostasis, go back to balance, it did not. It keeps going and going and going. And we have identified the key target to turn it down to the balance point to tell those T cells it's time to rest, to downregulate this group of T cells. And that's the approach you are taking. That's why AltruBio is so unique in addressing immunological diseases."

#AltruBio #ImmuneModulators #ImmuneDiseases #TCells #GVHD

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Dr. Judy Chou is the President and CEO of AltruBio which is developing novel immunomodulators to treat immunological diseases such as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their first-in-class agnostic antibody has a unique mechanism to regulate T cell homeostasis. Currently, there is a clinical trial for SR-aGVHD, steroid-refractory acute graft-host disease and an investigation is underway into using their second-generation molecule to treat ulcerative colitis.

Judy explains, "So we have this specific approach, only targeting those activated or the so-called over-activated T cell. So when the T cell is supposed to come down to quieten and to bring back to homeostasis, go back to balance, it did not. It keeps going and going and going. And we have identified the key target to turn it down to the balance point to tell those T cells it's time to rest, to downregulate this group of T cells. And that's the approach you are taking. That's why AltruBio is so unique in addressing immunological diseases."

#AltruBio #ImmuneModulators #ImmuneDiseases #TCells #GVHD

AltruBio.com

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Jeff Cleland is the Chairman, President, and CEO of Ashvattha Therapeutics, initially focusing on demonstrating the ability to deliver drugs that cross tissue barriers like the blood-brain barrier and the blood-retinal barrier to attack inflammation. The company is part of the emerging era of Hydroxyl Dendrimer Therapeutics, HDTs. While starting with ophthalmology and treating wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema, they are also running trials with long haul COVID patients. In addition, they are investigating neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's with the ability to measure the amount of the drug that gets into the brain.

Jeff explains, "The secret is the platform that was developed by our founders at Johns Hopkins. It's a husband and wife team that really focused on trying to figure out how to get across tissue barriers. So, they empirically went about looking at different nanomedicine platforms, and they came across what's called a hydroxyl dendrimer platform."

"What's unique about this is the density of hydroxyls on the surface makes it look like water to the body, so when it goes into the body, it doesn't get taken up by cells or tissues unless there's inflammation present. Then as it goes by those areas of inflammation, the cells grab the hydroxyl dendrimer and take it inside. Then we could treat intercellular targets, unlike other approaches where it hits all cells."

#AshvatthaTherapeutics #HDT #HydroxylDendrimerTherapeutics #WetAgeRelatedMacularDegeneration #DiabeticMacularEdema #Inflammation #LongCOVID #COVID #Alzheimers #Parkinsons

AVTTX.com

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Jeff Cleland is the Chairman, President, and CEO of Ashvattha Therapeutics, initially focusing on demonstrating the ability to deliver drugs that cross tissue barriers like the blood-brain barrier and the blood-retinal barrier to attack inflammation. The company is part of the emerging era of Hydroxyl Dendrimer Therapeutics, HDTs. While starting with ophthalmology and treating wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema, they are also running trials with long haul COVID patients. In addition, they are investigating neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's with the ability to measure the amount of the drug that gets into the brain.

Jeff explains, "The secret is the platform that was developed by our founders at Johns Hopkins. It's a husband and wife team that really focused on trying to figure out how to get across tissue barriers. So, they empirically went about looking at different nanomedicine platforms, and they came across what's called a hydroxyl dendrimer platform."

"What's unique about this is the density of hydroxyls on the surface makes it look like water to the body, so when it goes into the body, it doesn't get taken up by cells or tissues unless there's inflammation present. Then as it goes by those areas of inflammation, the cells grab the hydroxyl dendrimer and take it inside. Then we could treat intercellular targets, unlike other approaches where it hits all cells."

#AshvatthaTherapeutics #HDT #HydroxylDendrimerTherapeutics #WetAgeRelatedMacularDegeneration #DiabeticMacularEdema #Inflammation #LongCOVID #COVID #Alzheimers #Parkinsons

AVTTX.com

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Dr. Todd Johnson is the Chief Growth Officer at M2GEN an oncology-focused health informatics company. Its mission is to connect cancer patients to a precise cure using its data platform to analyze longitudinal clinical and genomic data. With a permission-based approach to data collection, M2GEN looks at the information related to the patient and from a tumor biopsy. This data analysis allows M2GEN to understand how patients respond to existing cancer treatments and gain more knowledge about the science behind cancer so that innovations and new precision medicines can be developed.

Todd elaborates, "Let's call the first the natural genome or the normal genome of a patient, also often called the germline genome. We provide information on germline as well as on the genome of the cancer. The reason why that's really important is that cancer is a disease of DNA, and it's a disease of how DNA changes over time or mutates. Those mutations are what cause a cancer to actually occur in the first place, for it to be able to evade the immune system, which is an important element of cancer progression. Then cancers can continue to mutate during the course of their life as they grow. That access to what we call serial specimens, that access to additional information about the cancer and how it continues to change from the body's normal or the patient's normal DNA, is a really important part of unlocking the mystery of what's happening here."

@M2GEN #DataScience #DataSolutions #Genomics #CancerResearch #CancerTreatment #PrecisionOncology

M2GEN.com

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Dr. Todd Johnson is the Chief Growth Officer at M2GEN an oncology-focused health informatics company. Its mission is to connect cancer patients to a precise cure using its data platform to analyze longitudinal clinical and genomic data. With a permission-based approach to data collection, M2GEN looks at the information related to the patient and from a tumor biopsy. This data analysis allows M2GEN to understand how patients respond to existing cancer treatments and gain more knowledge about the science behind cancer so that innovations and new precision medicines can be developed.

Todd elaborates, "Let's call the first the natural genome or the normal genome of a patient, also often called the germline genome. We provide information on germline as well as on the genome of the cancer. The reason why that's really important is that cancer is a disease of DNA, and it's a disease of how DNA changes over time or mutates. Those mutations are what cause a cancer to actually occur in the first place, for it to be able to evade the immune system, which is an important element of cancer progression. Then cancers can continue to mutate during the course of their life as they grow. That access to what we call serial specimens, that access to additional information about the cancer and how it continues to change from the body's normal or the patient's normal DNA, is a really important part of unlocking the mystery of what's happening here."

@M2GEN #DataScience #DataSolutions #Genomics #CancerResearch #CancerTreatment #PrecisionOncology

M2GEN.com

Download the transcript here