@seabs, I understand you still think the team is waiting on funding and that it will come. But you must be growing impatient as the rest of us are. It shouldn't take this long. There's no sufficient excuse. Do you think we can do anything to speed up this process?

Have you ever read the article written by the US Department of Health and Human Services: "2020 A New Vision - A Future for Regenerative Medicine"?

One of things mentioned as a way to ensure the progress of Regenerative Medicine is by 'increasing public awareness'.

 

"With a few exceptions, regenerative medicine endeavors have not resulted in economically viable products and have not aroused tremendous public interest. With perception often being reality, it is important that regenerative medicine receive the appropriate attention and arouses the excitement merited from the public."

 

.......We are on the cusp of achieving scar free healing and while the majority of the world will be able to benefit tremendously from it - yet I guarantee virtually no one is aware of this. I just feel like we could push this along. I can't sit here and do nothing and just keep wishing my life away waiting for this to come to fruition at such a slowwwwwwww pace. We have to let the people in charge know how bad this is wanted/needed. Or am I just speaking out of blind, passionate desperation?

 

I'm more impatient then you, or at least as impatient and frustrated, I want this in two years not three. I know they are waiting but TBH I do not know if they will get the funding, and if they didn't get the funding to me this would be a p take no matter what the spin. All I do is keep talking about it on here. I suppose someone could email certain charities like phoenix and see if they could give it a shout, but they may not want to shout. It may need a skilled blogger. It does need highlighted fast. Regarding the article I think I've scanned that in the past, but I dont now take any notice of journalistic rolling predictions (e.g. we promise this in x amount of time in 2003, 2004, 2005 and so on, renovo), or future sounding stuff. I only judge by results and logic.

Thanks for the friendly replies everyone, and thanks for the welcome Lapis I've actually followed this thread for a long time, through both the acell and juvista failures (/scams?), so I guess that's why I'm somewhat of a general disbeliever nowadays.

Maybe I should qualify what I meant regarding the comparison with skin transplants, as this is actually my main concern about not only this hydrogel but the potential of any future regenerative treatment as well:

Morphogenesis is an impressive cascade of events that ultimately leads to the shape of an organism. As some of you may already know, skin appendages form early on in the fetus and other properties of the skin, like the relative composition of the extracellular matrix in the dermis and its thickness, are likewise already approaching its adult like form at this stage. These properties will also be highly specific to the exact body part - e.g. the density of pilosebaceous units are vastly higher on the face than on anywhere else, and even significant intra-site variations do exist, occuring either gradually or having well defined borders (like the lip line). These morphological differences are determined by the epigenome (i.e. the gene expression profile) of the exact body site in our fetal form. In other words, the epigenome encodes the positional identity of cells. What concerns me is that the fetal epigenome will differ from the adult one, and the fact that we scar as adults is but one example of this. So, my fear is that the positional identity of the cells involved in regenerating the wound won't match that of the cells that once, in fetal life, determined the site specific properties of the native skin, thus creating a skin transplant like feel to the regenerated wound (i.e. there is no de facto scarring, but the wound will still stand out from being different than the surrounding skin.)

Anyhow, this is all just speculation, and I hope by god that I'm wrong, but I guess only time will tell.

On a positive note, I saw that you discussed salamanders earlier, and, by all accounts, they seem to have figured out how to keep their cells' positional identities throughout life judging from how they can regenerate site specific body parts, so it may be that it is possible after all to do this. The question is whether the hydrogel will suffice to this end in humans, or if a more salamander like regeneration involving more immature blastema cells needs to take place.

Regarding funding for the dextran hydrogel research from the NIH and DoD... hate to sound like I'm crazy with paranoia but both those institutions are already incredibly invested in AFIRM. Since one of AFIRM's guiding mission statements is to develop clinical therapies for wound healing without scarring I don't know how interested they'd be in pumping more money out to someone doing research that could undercut everything they're doing. I sincerely hope that's not the case but you never know.

 

Just forget about the NIH and DoD, after so many months of waiting obviously it is no longer in the game, SBIR is now in the game: http://www.sbir.gov/ and if they receive funding from the SBIR they will have to set up their company - that would be something like this: http://halscion.net/

BTW it is well known that tampering with the FDA and NIH means a lot of bureaucracy, it is something that is expected and I guess that their decision-making processes are not always so rational and logical, when something is run by the government it is always more or less ineffective - in the case of the United States take for example Amtrak and the US Postal Service and how much losses they make and in my country government-owned enterprises consistently make losses that are equal to 10% of GDP and everywhere around the world it is the same story, so it is not my biggest concern, my biggest concern is whether that hydrogel will work so effectively in humans as it works in mice?

Thanks for the friendly replies everyone, and thanks for the welcome Lapis

 

I completely agree with you. And my point was that investors looking at what seems to already be quite a ubiquitous potential market wouldn't want to throw money around on a lot of them. Also (and probably more true in this case), private investors tend to not fund projects that are seeking knowledge about something (rather than actualizing an idea). And as others have pointed out, Sun and Gerecht's study of the dextran hydrogel was not even about testing whether it could promote scar free healing on its own; that was just a happy unexpected result.

 

Actually right now I'm learning how research funding works, I've just learned that there are government-funded 'basic research' and privately-funded 'applied research':

http://en.wikipedia....esearch_funding

http://en.wikipedia..../Basic_research

http://en.wikipedia....pplied_research

But I think that this hydrogel stuff from the JHU is an example of 'applied research' and that salamander stuff from the UoK and UoF are very good examples of 'basic research'.

I haven't received any reply from Sharon Gerecht. I know it has been a short time since I've sent it but I don't think I will get any reply as in my experience you either get one right away or you don't get anything at all.

thanks @seabs135 that totally explains what I was concerned about and I can see now why it was written that way!

So now the scenario is still back to funding -or lack of it - puzzle

I'm definitely thinking about this topic too much... but maybe the government isn't quick to fund it as they think it has too much commercial potential and thus could easily attract private funding - and I've even been reading up on hydrogels and dextran to try and guage how hard the hydrogel is to make - I mean is this something another lab would find hard to replicate? and how exactly do they manufacture the gel - and get the ratios of dextran they talk about?

this was one of the benefits of the cold war - the russians might have tried to steal something like this and try and come up with the first human treatments first, lol

I know I'm lucky to be alive in an age where such breakthroughs are possible - but then in a way it's even more frustrating to have cures so near in front of you - and yet still untouchable and not quite there!!!

@chuckstonchew

Could you tell us the nam of the researcher you emailed? I'm thinking of emailing one of the researchers involved with the dextran hydrogel but want to make sure it's not the same person you emailed.

@golfpanther

Sure. It was Dr. Guoming Sun.

Thanks! That's what I figured (and he was who I was thinking of emailing).

Maybe others are working on this as we speak [i hope] - or hopefully, like I said last time - someone in India or China will just pick this up and run with it - and investigate at a bullet-like speed

 

@Mars, no one from India or China or anywhere can pick up on it and do anything because Geracht and company have it patented.

Maybe they should bring their research over to India/China/etc and escape the clear faults of the American system. I know I would travel absolutely anywhere if it worked!

 

Actually it is very well known that the protection of intellectual property is pretty weak in China and that could be a good thing for us

http://en.wikipedia....operty_in_China

And here is an interesting article:

http://www.shopfloor...-in-china/16829

So I guess that it is not impossible scenario that there could be some Chinese lab that will be willing to copy that dextran hydrogel patent and sell it to some clinics that will offer scar free treatment to anybody before it is approved by the FDA, of course under the basic precondition that dextran hydrogel really works in humans as in mice.

 

Maybe others are working on this as we speak [i hope] - or hopefully, like I said last time - someone in India or China will just pick this up and run with it - and investigate at a bullet-like speed

 

 

@Mars, no one from India or China or anywhere can pick up on it and do anything because Geracht and company have it patented.

Maybe they should bring their research over to India/China/etc and escape the clear faults of the American system. I know I would travel absolutely anywhere if it worked!

 

 

Actually it is very well known that the protection of intellectual property is pretty weak in China and that could be a good thing for us

http://en.wikipedia....operty_in_China

And here is an interesting article:

http://www.shopfloor...-in-china/16829

So I guess that it is not impossible scenario that there could be some Chinese lab that will be willing to copy that dextran hydrogel patent and sell it to some clinics that will offer scar free treatment to anybody before it is approved by the FDA, of course under the basic precondition that dextran hydrogel really works in humans as in mice.

 

All scaffolds behave similar in all mammals, they degrade. IMO logically the only way a scaffold wont work in any mammals is if the mammals blood cell response to injury was not effective, like there was minimal neutrophils in the wound to eat the scaffold in 7 to 10 days. Or the scaffold was to tough for the netrophils to digest rapidly ect.

Well I hope you're right, I'm just afraid that there are different levels of bone marrow stem cells circulating through the blood stream in humans than in mice or something similar that could cause the hydrogel to fail in human trials - but what makes me happy is knowing the fact that InVivo Therapeutics hydrogel was first successfully tested on mice and then it was equally successful in mokeys and probably will be successful in humans.

And Seabs what do you say about this - could be a good news:

http://www.polymerso...ll-becomes-law/

Does it mean that in our case the 2,5 year period for FDA approval could be shortened? Is it a good news for us or not?

And Seabs what do you say about this - could be a good news:

http://www.polymerso...ll-becomes-law/

Does it mean that in our case the 2,5 year period for FDA approval could be shortened? Is it a good news for us or not?

 

If it got got approved in less than 2.5 years that would be brilliant. The quicker the better. 2.5 years is way to long of a wait if you are suffering. But this sentence in the last paragraph on the article makes me think there is not enough detail here to say if this is good or bad, quote, "Also, the UCS is concerned that the legislations provisions allows medical experts with financial ties to drug and device manufacturers to serve on FDA advisory panels, reports the Houston Business Journal." Maybe? Speeding things up maybe; but does it respects a non biased treatment with regards to device approval? But what I do know is the process needs speeded up.

I haven't received any reply from Sharon Gerecht. I know it has been a short time since I've sent it but I don't think I will get any reply as in my experience you either get one right away or you don't get anything at all.

 

I haven't received any reply from Sharon Gerecht. I know it has been a short time since I've sent it but I don't think I will get any reply as in my experience you either get one right away or you don't get anything at all.

 

Anything from Dr. Gerecht? If she doesn't respond by mid-week, I'll send her an e-mail asking for an update. If she's flooded enough she'll probably respond just to shut us up.

I sent Gerecht an e-mail too - no response.

I've also sent pretty much every influential person in regenerative medicine in the US an e-mail regarding the necessary progression of the hydrogel.

Oh - and I mailed a letter to President Obama asking him to do all in his power to ensure the speedy approval of this potentially miraculous, life-restoring treatment. Ha! I'm not messing around. Everyone in the world needs to hear about this. The more we talk about it, the faster the process will move. We need to let people know that we have to have the hydrogel ASAP!

@chuckstonchew

Wow, that is awesome! Nice work. I wonder if we should work to get a petition going like you said and maybe even a website. Sheer numbers might help push this along.

I'll do what I can to mail and email people and if anone was interested in setting up a petition or site I could help with that too.

I don't have much time to talk much right now, but no, I haven't had any response from Sharon Gerecht. I also e-mailed Erkki Ruoslahti (I hope I spelled that right) once and he did reply right away. Which was cool. But why Sharon doesn't reply, I have no idea of.

I'll be back later, people! I hope you're feeling OK today.

@Lapis lazuli

Yeah, I got a response from Ruoslahti as well. Very quick and honest. Guess we have to just keep blowing up Gerecht's email account until she bites.

And thanks for the well wishes. Hope you're feeling great today.

Who is this Rusoslahti character and how's he involved?

And did he have anything interesting to say?

It's not directly related to the hydrogel but he's a researcher using another tactic to promote scar free healing.

Here's a link to give you more info:

http://beaker.sanfordburnham.org/2010/11/new-insights-into-scar-prevention/

He responded right away but like Gerecht's lab the hangup was funding when I got a response from him.

I emailed Dr. Gerecht today and received an auto reply that she is currently traveling until July 29th and will have limited email access. So, this might explain why the others that have emailed her haven't gotten a response yet.

It's not directly related to the hydrogel but he's a researcher using another tactic to promote scar free healing.

 

Here's a link to give you more info:

 

http://beaker.sanfor...car-prevention/

 

He responded right away but like Gerecht's lab the hangup was funding when I got a response from him.

 

Just to be clear: he told you that he's no longer working on it (i.e. bringing decorin to the clinic) as he hasn't got the funding?

I emailed Dr. Gerecht today and received an auto reply that she is currently traveling until July 29th and will have limited email access. So, this might explain why the others that have emailed her haven't gotten a response yet.

 

Unlikely as I should have gotten that same auto reply when I e-mailed her in the case she was travelling back then as well; she chose to ignore me.

@lapis lazuli

At the time I emailed and got responses from Ruoslahti (a little over a year ago now) he basically said what the story I linked said. That decorin is hard to produce in large quantities (i.e. expensive) so they hadn't been able to get the funding for it as of yet. Also, the second time he e-mailed me he said that the CAR-Decorin only resulted in scars that were half the size of the controls and no appendices (hair follicles, sweat glands etc.) came back. I believe I posted his exact responses about year ago on this very board.

As far as Dr. Gerecht not responding to you, it's entirely possible she ignored you. However, you emailed her on a Thursday (for a lot of professors their last day of the week) and extremely early in the day so it's also possible that she, or more likely her assistant, had not set up the autoreply or she was too busy planning her trip to reply to people. As someone who has been a professor I can tell you that the wheels move very slowly in academia and while Ruoslahti was extremely fast, he's not the norm. Let's see what happens after the 29th and if she doesn't respond in the first few days I'll email again.

Bottom line, something needs to get this research jumpstarted again so it gets on the path for device approval. I'm interested in doing some of the things chuckstonstew was urging us to take up but would like to know where the research stands so I know where I could be most helpful.

Also, the second time he e-mailed me he said that the CAR-Decorin only resulted in scars that were half the size of the controls and no appendices (hair follicles, sweat glands etc.) came back.

 

Than I don't understand what is so special about that CAR decorin? CTGF inhibitors can achieve the same or even better result and when should we expect CAR decorin on the market - maybe in 10 years or something like that, it is too far away. And the fourth phase 2 trial of CTGF inhibitor is completed now, soon we will know if it is a success or failure, if it is a success then the fist phase 3 trial of the first CTGF inhibitor will begin in 2013. And of course we have hydrogels and recell.