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Biotech / Medical : Biotransplant(BTRN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (348)	8/13/1999 6:56:00 PM
From: RWReeves	Respond to of 1475

Which one of you wise guys broke BTRN? It was just starting to run fine again until today. I'm pretty sure it was richard's post on pig chimerism. BTW I am noticing a pattern: Richard pushes it, it goes down by 20% and then somebody buys the company.

To: LLCF who wrote (348)	8/14/1999 9:32:00 PM
From: scaram(o)uche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1475

Damn server. Humans recognize a molecule ("antigen") on the surface of pig cells and have pre-formed antibodies floating around in them (us, certain short-sellers excepted) that react with it. Therefore, pig organs are rejected by primates in a hyperacute (really fast, not due to classic, "cell-mediated" transplantation reactions) fashion. MGH scientists asked "given what we plan to do for XenoMune, is this pre-formed antibody, or antibody derived from the same cells that made the pre-formed antibody, really going to be a problem?" That is, they asked if the pig to human stem cell transplant itself would alleviate the issues associated with expression of the "antigen" on the surface of, for example, pig kidney cells. To answer this question, they engineered a mouse that looks to a normal mouse, with respect to this particular antigen, as a human looks to a pig. The "pig-like" cells were constructed such that there would be no GvH when their bone marrow was transplanted to "human-like" recipients, but they differed by very strong transplantation antigens (F1 hybrid to parent). The answer was "yes". Warning...... mice are not humans, and a modest GvH stimulates most antibody responses. Nonetheless, a brilliant question and stunning results. Sachs, Sykes et al. are amazing. Of course, this may be irrelevant with respect to the long-term quality of BTRN as an investment. I'm a big bull, but I'm also keeping my eyes open...... tough, tough job.