Hi Nigel. I've been mostly lurking on SI since our brew with Rick and Max. Just thought I'd give you some background on CYGX, as I used to be a stockholder during my wilder years. The company was previously named "Cryogenic Solutions" and traded under the symbol CYGS. The SI thread was incredibly ugly: Subject 16707
I was originally attracted by the company's research into "Processive Elongation of Telomeric Repeats (PETR) as it applies to Anti-aging Therapies and possible anti-cancer applications," but they dropped that after latching onto the ssDNA platform. I lost all hope that the company might be legitimate when I began reading that they believed antisense technology should be allied with "Compounding Pharmacists [who] provide customized multi-ingredient combinations of herbals, chemicals, and naturally occurring biological components according to physicians' prescriptions where these compounds are not available through mass-market pharmaceutical companies." In their Nov. 1999 press release (available on their website at cytogenix.com they write: <<Historically, pharmacists have combined various components into products that provided symptomatic relief or temporary control of physical ailments. Today however, breakthroughs in molecular biology offer new alternatives. Biotechnology has identified biochemical molecules called oligodeoxyribonucleotides (ODNs) with the potential to permanently relieve many complaints. The protocols, apparatus, and instruments are now available which enable a compounding pharmacist to create products composed of naturally occurring biological components such as DNA, RNA, and various proteins or enzymes useful in preventive measures.
The CYGS expression vector promises to be useful in enabling the new technology by delivering ODNs to the targeted cells. These scientific breakthroughs herald an increasing emphasis moving away from simply relieving symptoms to actually treating the disease. The role of PharmaGenix™ is to support compounding pharmacists, patients, and physicians and assist in the utilization of the new technologies that are emerging in the evolution of customized healthcare products.>>
Call me jaded, but I don't think the local compounding pharmacists will be mixing up antisense brew in this decade. The time may come when a SNP analysis will be sued to diagnose that a particular patient's illness is due to the absence of a particular gene needed in order to produce a particular protein and a compounding pharmacist will use that information to combine or compound the missing gene with a vector to be administered to the patient. But it is tad early to be betting on that.
Marc |
