Originally posted by nautica
I am one of the few that is not interested in money. I was extremely successful in the Real Estate Business and have no need nor desire to make money in the medical industry.
That's very admirable. However, I'm not sure you have a realistic idea of how expensive medical research really is. One thing smaller companies do when they need facilities they can't afford to build is to outsource the work to universities, either just by contracting the animal housing and procedure areas (this is usually limited by how much space a university has for their own researchers...if they have empty rooms, they are more than happy to have someone pay to use them, if they are full to the gills, they won't be very accomodating)...this also comes with regulatory oversight by the university, so will help you through all of that.
I do however have a friend who is 3 years into ALS and with a 2 to 5 year life expactancy there is not much hope.
I can see why this would be a strong motivating factor for you. You'll need to be realistic that with that short of a life expectancy, even if you're exactly right and all the experiments work perfectly the first time, which usually is not the case, testing in mice is a long way from testing in humans, and not likely to result in a cure or treatment in time to help your friend. I still would urge you to put the time into learning to do research properly so that you have the best chance of success...afterall, if the experiments aren't properly controlled or have a lot of technical problems, even if you are onto a cure, nobody will believe it.
Thank you for the information, It is much appreciated.
You're welcome. Something else you should consider is that if this is truly a viable approach, someone may already be working on it. One organization that will have members doing that sort of work is the Society for Neuroscience. I don't have their site bookmarked on the computer I'm using right now, but I think it's something simple like www.sfn.org.[/URL] They have abstracts of work presented at their annual meetings for the past several years available online. You can search that database with keywords...try things like ALS (or spell it out)or IGF-1. If what's important to you is just seeing the work done, and you have the means to financially support it, you may want to contact some of the people currently doing work in that area and see whether your ideas are viable and if they'd be willing to take on that work if you funded it...and perhaps they'd even agree to having you come into their labs to learn to do some of the work. Sometimes we don't see things published because they just don't work, so talking to people who know that specific field would help determine that. For example, maybe they know from their colleagues that someone tried it and it killed all the mice. Something like that would never get published.
[QUOTE][B]One question, a drug like IGF-1 is not a controlled substance, in fact I am not even sure if it is recogized as a substance. What is the legality concerning substances like this?
Thanks
Nautica [/B][/QUOTE]
It is of course a "substance", but I'm not sure if IGF-1 is under any regulatory control. I work at a university, so they may already have agreements with the vendors regarding purchasing of these sorts of substances. I have had to fill out some simple forms for some things that aren't really controlled, but are things companies don't want to just sell to the average person on the street, so they make you sign forms agreeing you're using it for legitimate research purposes, will keep it secured, etc. That's just covering their own liabilities.
However, you were talking about using viral vectors for IGF-1 delivery...in that case, you aren't looking to buy IGF-1, you're looking to find someone who has a cDNA clone for it. Those you don't just buy from a catalog, you either need to make it yourself or convince someone else they should provide it to you (in which case, you're still going to need to grow up more of it yourself). These things are not mass produced.
You mentioned trials are already underway using IGF-1. What is the effectiveness of delivering IGF-1 directly into the brain? That must be known or they wouldn't be taking it to clinical trials yet. Actually, that's usually the first step in testing something on a neurological disorder, to inject it directly into the brain and see if it does anything (in the appropriate animal model of course). I'm not sure if it is an issue for IGF-1 to cross the blood-brain barrier. I think it does, but I'd have to double check on that.
