Large animal trial for Chondroitinase is underway

[lynnifer]

Yes there were before vids and after vids during the trial ... Would have to like the page and scroll through for those plus be on Facebook.

[scimike]

Yes there were before vids and after vids during the trial ... Would have to like the page and scroll through for those plus be on Facebook.

me too, hopefully Grammy and Jim can figure out a way to put it here or link it

[Fly_Pelican_Fly]

Amazing how one can register for the Cure forum, make posts, be given links to the dog trial facebook page - and still expect poor Grammy to spoon feed you the videos. Give her a break! Every moment she spends spoon feeding you is time she has to spend away from her analysis work. So if you value her, as I am sure you all do, make a bit of extra effort and have a look at the videos yourself. I am sure signing up to facebook is not too difficult a task.

As has been said many times here before the dog results (thermostabilised enzyme) will go some way to determining whether we need to go down the viral vector route (long term ch'ase expression) or not. If the results of the dog trial are compelling enough then expect planning for a human clinical trial to commence. This would also require a manufacturer of a human grade thermostabilised Ch'ase enzyme and likely a commercial entity willing to take it forward.

If the recently completed dog trial results are not compelling enough to go forward to human trials we may see another dog trial using one of the viral vectors being designed out of Cambridge & Kings College London Universities in the UK. Or if the financial backing is there you may even see both a dog trial with the viral vector AND a human clinical trial with the thermostabilised enzyme!

If you're expecting Ch'ase (thermostabilised enzyme or viral vector) to arrive in clinical trials without GMP manufacturers and commercial entity involvement you'll be disappointed!

[Mize]

This is one of the real disconcerting aspects of SCI research. I know of multiple cases where promising SCI tech could not attract investment monies owing to SCI being a market with inadequate volume. Angel investors and venture capitalists want to fund projects with upside of billions not millions in profits.

[scimike]

The trial has ended now. The below is the notes from their facebook site:

We will be posting preliminary results by November

The study will be completed by November. We hope to publish the results in a neuroscience journal by next year

[Pauly1]

Related to this discussion is http://www.neurosci.cn/news/upload/20141201-986-477.pdf whose article abstract is below. We see discussion/results of ChABC+stem cell testing in UK/China.

Combination treatment with chondroitinase ABC in spinal cord injury?breaking the barrier
Rong-Rong Zhao, James W Fawcett
Brain Repair Centre, University of Cambridge, UK
Corresponding author: James W Fawcett. E-mail: jf108@cam.ac.uk

? Shanghai institutes for Biological Sciences, CAS and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

After spinal cord injury (SCi), re-establishing functional circuitry in the damaged central nervous system (CNS)
faces multiple challenges including lost tissue volume, insufficient intrinsic growth capacity of adult neurons,
and the inhibitory environment in the damaged CNS. Several treatment strategies have been developed
over the past three decades, but successful restoration of sensory and motor functions will probably
require a combination of approaches to address different aspects of the problem. Degradation of the
chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans with the chondroitinase ABC (ChABC) enzyme removes a regeneration
barrier from the glial scar and increases plasticity in the CNS by removing perineuronal nets. its mechanism
of action does not clash or overlap with most of the other treatment strategies, making ChABC an attractive
candidate as a combinational partner with other methods. in this article, we review studies in rat SCi models
using ChABC combined with other treatments including cell implantation, growth factors, myelin-inhibitory
molecule blockers, and ion channel expression. We discuss possible ways to optimize treatment protocols
for future combinational studies. To date, combinational therapies with ChABC have shown synergistic
effects with several other strategies in enhancing functional recovery after SCi. These combinatorial
approaches can now be developed for clinical application.

[GRAMMY]

Related to this discussion is http://www.neurosci.cn/news/upload/20141201-986-477.pdf whose article abstract is below. We see discussion/results of ChABC+stem cell testing in UK/China.

Rong-Rong Zhao was a student working in the Brain Repair Centre, University of Cambridge in the UK under the supervision of James Fawcett back in 2013. He was an author on a few papers during that time period. Literally hundreds of students in various labs throughout the world have worked with rats and Chondroitinase. His more recent papers in 2015 deal with mammary lymph node biopsy and hepatitis B... LINK

[scimike]

Grammy thank you for straighten it out. It appears that the dog study is the most advance for C'hase and we all have to wait for the results.

[GRAMMY]

The data has been submitted to a journal.

LINK