To: Heat Shock who wrote (165 ) 5/7/2001 6:51:46 PM From: Heat Shock Read Replies (1) | Respond to To all, post by bioguy on stockhouse.ca:It looks like you have a medical if not scientific background. Most of us are aware that HPV is an oncogenic agent in a variety of squamous tumors or proliferative lesions of skin and mucous membranes - This is SSB's "Raison d'etre" . Although it is true that there is overlap in the HPV types in various lesions, HPV's 6 and 11 (low-risk HPV's) are found most frequently in condylomas, whereas HPV's 16, 18 and 31 (high-risk HPV's) are more often present in carcinoma. Mixed low- and high-risk types are found in dyplasias. Sorry if the next part is technical for the rest of the readers: The precise reasons for the associations between HPV types and lesions are unclear. One accepted scenario is that low-risk HPV (6&11) lead to productive infection associated with unintegrated episomal viral DNA. Full viral expression in infected cells is thus characterized by cell proliferation, cell maturation, koilocytosis, and other features distinctive of condylomas. High-risk HPV (16&18) on the other hand, are associated with a geater proprotion of viral DNA becoming integrated into the host genome. One current model for tumor progression with HPV is that the virus induces transformation by integration into the cellular sequence, possibly near a proto-oncogene. Indeed, it has been shown that HPV types 16 & 18 ( but not 6 & 11 ) cooperate with the ras oncogene in causing transformed tumorogenic foci in culterd cells. The putative transforming sequence of the HPV virus, the E6 to E7 open reading frame, is consistently transcribed in the squamous cancer cells, arguing for a similar role for HPV in vivo. It is refreshing to discuss this with somebody who is knowledgeable. I have looked at this carefully and I believe that SSB is on track and that the science is good. I suspect that the larger pharmaceutical co. have reservations similar to your own however the "proof is in the pudding" and SSB is still on track. I'm hoping for partnership in about a year's time. I am Very bullish on this stock in the long run. I am also very encouraged that Christine Charette with Nesbitt is back. She has been right on the money with her analysis of other biotech stocks I made a small fortune with. Although I understand the science I don't pretend to be that knowledgeable an investor. But as the cliche goes " INVEST IN WHAT YOU KNOW " stockhouse.ca
