new tweet, page-11

DSsaville, since you posted this, my comments in that post had come from a specific presentation and I found my original post after listening to it that was the source of my thoughts....


HDSA Francis Collins HD Gene Symposium 20 years - Keynote Address

by frobinso1 • Sep 19, 2013 2:21 PM
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For the 33 Million Grant possibilities, Francis Collins' Keynote Address is fabulous to listen to.

It talks about the initial 100 Million BRAIN initiative, and how the sequester has whittled it down.

That panel that was to determine the funding recipients led by Corey Bordman(?) of Rockefeller & Bill Newsom of Stanford, along with a panel of scientists by mid-summer 2014. Since many recipients have been announced I suppose in dealing with the sequester and scraping together funding perhaps this timeline has been accelerated - I don't know.

I like the discussion of the TREND Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases led by Chris Austin that was formed in response to question to at about 40:34 seconds in regarding the lack of funding for rare diseases. Huntington's belongs to this group of diseases that struggles to receive funding as a result of the smaller number of people suffering from this disease.

It is encouraging that PBT2 uniquely has the potential across both AD and HD, and that Collin Masters some 20 years ago was involved in the intense effort to discover the related Genes.

As related to Huntington's Disease he mentioned the finding of an increase in Sirtuin (Sirt1) as increasing protection, and possibly by preventing Huntington from reducing BDNF levels.

In the 2011 Plus One pub PBT2 result: Metal Ionophore Treatement Restores Dendritic Spine Density and Synaptic Protean Levels in a mouse model of AD, those results up-regulated BDNF significantly by 19 percent.

PBT2 would be an excellent candidate, and perhaps there is a reason why the recipient is so far un-announced. Of the original anticipated mid-2014 date for which the panel was supposed to originally decide recipients still holds true the results of both HD and AD trials will be known.