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Biotech / Medical : Neuroscience -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Marty who wrote (171)	2/1/2001 6:07:52 AM
From: scott_jiminez	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 278

Marty - I’m still trying to understand how Neotrophin (AIT-082, a norepinephrine-based purine derivative) works. I understand that the company claims it releases a cornucopia of growth factors (NGF, FGF, etc.) which mediate their findings. I can’t envision how you’d achieve any specificity with this approach. Neotherapeutics claims they find improvements in AD patients and now increased proliferation of adult brain stem cells. The company also predicts/suggests AIT-082 will be applicable to Parkinson’s Disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. I understand AIT-082 readily crosses the BBB and is showing interesting results in early clinical trials. But where is the specificity? I’ve addressed this issue, the exposure of brain to incredibly elevated levels of GFs, numerous times on this thread. The question remains, what are you doing to the rest of the brain while making prophylactic repairs on the progressing pathology? Has the company reported detailed neuroanatomical data on the ‘NON-diseased’ sites? In addition, elevated replication of neural stem cells within an adult brain is not necessarily, or even logically, a good thing: not only could a proliferation of ‘ectopic’ neurons really screw things up, but ‘directing’ their target sites is a goal that seems virtually insurmountable. The company may seek to replace damaged neurons that once innervated the hippocampus (AD), but the impetuous, stem-cell derived juvenile cells may 'decide' to go elsewhere. Were the motor cortex to receive these (permanent) guests, the patients might then find themselves, quite literally, sticking their foot in their mouth. In short, the cure may be worse than the disease. All my opinion