Stephen Davies Update

[Fly_Pelican_Fly]

In additional to Giles Plant's replication attempt Anne Logan's lab here in the the UK has been working with Decorin extensively for many years. They had discussed collaboration with Davies in the context of Decorin but Davies has not followed the original discussions up. They have unlimited access to clinical grade Decorin here in the UK too.

[Johnnie Walked]

Has anyone spoken with Dr. Davies to get his opinion on this? .

[jsilver]

Dr. Davies just published a new decorin study in "Neurosurgery" just this month.


I just wanted to provide a link to the negative results that you inquired about. I'm not commenting on the validity of the finding. The "test of time" will determine whether or not decorin is as robust a treatment for SCI as Dr. Davies has made it out to be. Indeed, the Logan lab has studied decorin for some time but she has never claimed any evidence of robust regeneration nor functional benefit from decorin treatment. Giles Plant and his team are a very well respected group of researchers in our field, so if and when his paper on decorin is published, it will have a major impact. Also, could you provide us with a link or the reference itself of the recent Davies paper in Neurosurgery? All I can find is an August abstract of an oral presentation and this is not a legitimate publication.

[Charles Hansen]

Also, could you provide us with a link or the reference itself of the recent Davies paper in Neurosurgery? All I can find is an August abstract of an oral presentation and this is not a legitimate publication.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22811185

In the upper left corner it says "Neurosurgery. 2012 Aug;71(2):E576."

I don't know enough about the nomenclature of these to know if this is a printed article or an oral presentation. I assume the former because of the date, but I have been wrong before.

[Charles Hansen]

Well, now I am more confused than ever. I went to the "Neurosurgery" website and they list the table of contents for the August issue:

http://journals.lww.com/neurosurgery/toc/2012/08000

It lists the page numbers as:

August 2012 - Volume 71 - Issue 2
pp: N12-N13,197-502,E495-E582

and this includes the pages from the PubMed website for the Davies article. But I don't know what the "E" prefix means. And there is no sign of this article in the table of contents for that issue.

Also the PubMed website quotes "Neurosurgery. 2012 Aug;71(2):E576" which implies that the paper is only 1 page long, which makes no sense to me.

So perhaps the "E" prefix only refers to oral presentations. If so, it is my mistake and I apologize for the error.

[Charles Hansen]

Mystery solved. After more poking around the "Neurosurgery" website I found that it is a PDF of an oral presentation. However as a non-subscriber, the price of the reprint is $63.84 with tax. I think I'll pass...

http://journals.lww.com/neurosurgery...acute.154.aspx

CNS ORAL PRESENTATIONS: PDF Only

[Skipow]

Any new updates on Decorin or chronic related studies?

[Schmeky]

Skipow,

No. And there won't be.

[Buck503]

Realistically we are probably looking at 2 to 3 years before we are ready to start clinical trials with human GMP grade GDA cells, once again if we are able to increase the pace of current research.

The chronic SCI experiments we are currently conducting are in large part made possible by donations from CC.

there are also plans afoot to put together the infrastructure for conducting SCI clinical trials here in the US in future.

...4 years ago. What should people expect from Dr. Davies in future?

Mar. 3, 2011 — For the first time, scientists discovered that a specific type of human cell, generated from stem cells and transplanted into spinal cord injured rats, provide tremendous benefit, not only repairing damage to the nervous system but helping the animals regain locomotor function as well.

With these results, the Proschel and Davies teams are moving forward on the necessary next steps before they can implement the approach in humans, including testing the transplanted human astrocytes in different injury models that resemble severe, complex human spinal cord injuries at early and late stages after injury.

SOURCE

Sounds like they have (had) a lot more lab work ahead of them.

[Le Todd]

I don't think the forum allow words like:

f-u-c-k-i-n-g
a-s-s
s-h-i-t

You don't read much outside of Cure, do you?

[khmorgan]

[ATTACH]48100[/ATTACH]

Dr. Davies was wrong about Decorin. I doubt that he knew it when he stopped posting. Regardless, I'll bet he added to the knowledge required to find a cure.

Personally, I wish he had stayed in touch, told us what went wrong, and what he planned next. But, having seen how failure is handled here, I have no idea why any serious researcher would post here.

Now, can't we stop beating this dead horse?

[Charles Hansen]

You don't read much outside of Cure, do you?

That's true, I don't. So perhaps the forums do allow crude language. If that is so, I wonder why they deleted the posts where Schmecky told me that I was a fucking idiot and a shit head, and yet they left the post where he dismissively said that nobody would ever hear of any results from Dr. Davies Decorin experiments.

Seems like petty politics t me, with Dr. Jerry Silver abandoning his own presentation at the W2W conference to harass Dr. Davies during his presentation on results of Decorin experiments on chronic rats, this time injured with Dr. Young's favorite method of contusion injuries.

No matter what Dr. Davies does, all he receives from this crowd is criticism. apparently either politically or personally motivated....

[Charles Hansen]

[ATTACH]48100[/ATTACH]

Dr. Davies was wrong about Decorin. I doubt that he knew it when he stopped posting. Regardless, I'll bet he added to the knowledge required to find a cure.

Personally, I wish he had stayed in touch, told us what went wrong, and what he planned next. But, having seen how failure is handled here, I have no idea why any serious researcher would post here.

Now, can't we stop beating this dead horse?

And just out of curiosity, what makes you think that Dr. Davies was wrong about Decoriin?

I agree with your statement 101% that I have no idea why any serious researcher would post here. Well except that I have heard that Care-Cure generates about $30 million per year in donations. Of course that doesn't go to all of the serious researchers who post here but just one or two specific ones.

And, unfortunately, it seems to be a part of human nature to keep beating those dead horses. (Although you did make a wonderful animated GIF that one could not help but laugh at!)
Cheers,
Charlie

[GRAMMY]

Clearly the act of birth triggers some sort of change in the basic biochemistry of the CNS.

Dr. Davies simply inserted a catheter into the dura surrounding the spinal cord and infused the cerebro-spinal fluid with the decorin. The decorin knew where to go and what to do all by itself. My understanding is that it "turns back the clock" for a period of a few weeks, so that an adult can have the same regeneration of the CNS that is present in a fetus.

So, if Decorin is put in the spinal fluid and knows where to go and what to do all by itself and it turns the central nervous system back to the fetal stage for a few weeks...is a few weeks of the cord reverting back to a fetal stage enough to cause massive regeneration throughout the entire cord? I've never heard of a simple small proteoglycan having such capability. Would this be a cure mechanism for say other indications such as MS, TM, ALS and Parkinsons that also involve the CNS? Are there scientists doing basic research projects with Decorin for these other indications perhaps not involving SCI?

[Charles Hansen]

Hi Grammy,

That is a good question. I have no idea of the answer to that. My understanding is that Dr. Davies has been approached by victims of those other diseases, asking him to use his techniques on their diseases. However he has declined to work on those areas at the present, stating that his first commitment was made to the SCI community.

He has spoken of a group using Decorin to treat (eg, reshape) the corneas of persons with vision deficiencies so that they don't need to wear corrective lenses. My understanding is that he hopes that group will get Decorin approved by the FDA so that then anyone can use it for "off-label" uses. My understanding is that this process is an expensive one and he is hoping that the other group will pay for the approval process and then he can proceed with human trials.

As usual, my memory is very poor and I may have mis-remembered or mis-understood. If people want to attack someone for a comment I make here, please attack me and not Dr. Davies.

Thanks,
Charles Hansen