GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Protein-Based Therapy for Neurological Repair Shows Promise

Michael Steinhart | Date: 04-06-10 | Comments

A sports mishap led to a fit and healthy entrepreneur�s suffering a debilitating stroke. He now funds groundbreaking research into the reversal of nerve damage.

Matthew Klipstein had everything going for him. A successful lawyer and entrepreneur, he co-founded an online storage and stock photography business that was purchased by Bill Gates� Corbis Corp. In the spring of 2000, fresh from the successful sale, he suffered what seemed to be a minor mishap while playing beach volleyball. The injury was, in fact, far from minor.

Research in lab rats shows that protein TGFa actually delivers stem cells to sites of neurological damage, where they differentiate to form the needed cells and "repair" the area.

Klipstein�s story is featured in a recent issue of the Strategic News Service newsletter. This is how he describes the experience:

"I woke up in the middle of the night, quite confused to find the entire left side of my body not quite working properly. I swung myself out of bed and promptly caught the floor with my face. I couldn�t walk. I couldn�t stand up or move my left arm or leg. I was having difficulty speaking. I later learned that [my teammate�s] elbow had hit me perfectly, in such a manner as to tear the interior lining of my carotid artery (called a �carotid dissection�). Blood flowing through the artery had pushed its way into the tear and bubbled the lining up, completely occluding the main artery that supplies blood to the right side of the brain. I had suffered a massive stroke in my sleep."

Over the next few months, Klipstein was told to accept his disability and "learn to live with it." After all, unless treatment is administered within a few hours of a stroke�s discovery, the damage is permanent and irreversible. At least, that�s what conventional medicine posits.

Unwilling to accept these pronouncements, Klipstein began searching the Internet for research projects that may be studying neurological damage and potential remedies. With his considerable wealth, he reasoned, he could fund promising studies and perhaps even find a way to restore his body to normal function.

He discovered the work of Dr. James Fallon, professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Fallon�s research involves the use of a naturally occurring protein called Transforming Growth Factor-alpha (TGF-a) to repair damaged nerve tissue. Through several years of legal and financial maneuvering, Klipstein�s privately owned corporation, NeuroRepair, owns the rights to the intellectual property produced by Dr. Fallon�s lab, and the results thus far are nothing short of astonishing. Klipstein writes:

"Jim Fallon had discovered, and I believe no one knowledgeable disputes this, that the particular growth factor called TGF-a, when administered to an injured or otherwise damaged brain, can stimulate what is collectively called 'PMD': (a) a massive Proliferation of endogenous adult stem cells; (b) the Migration of those cells to the locus of damage; and (c) the Differentiation of those cells into the type of cells that have been lost or damaged."

NeuroRepair has been able, thus far, to "cure" laboratory rats of stroke and Parkinson�s disease. Moving the study to human subjects will require the resources of a much larger and better-funded pharmaceutical company, which Klipstein hopes will happen soon.

NeuroRepair will be featured as a �firestarter� company at SNS� Future in Review conference later this spring. You can learn more about the conference by visiting www.tapsns.com or www.futureinreview.com.

Have you heard about breakthrough scientific or medical discoveries that are languishing in research labs due to lack of funding or patent law snags? Share your ideas and links here!