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Alphabet's Calico has begun trials on a molecule for neurodegenerative diseases
- joak 5y agoExcerpt : "The molecule has restored memory formation in mice months after traumatic brain injuries and shown potential in treating neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Lou Gehrig’s disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS)."
- joak 5y agoExcerpts: "the molecule was licensed by Calico Labs, the Silicon Valley biotech established by the founders of Google to find drugs based on the biology of aging" " In February, Calico announced that human safety trials had begun on the first drug candidate for neurodegenerative diseases it had developed based on the molecule, and that a study in ALS patients was slated to begin later this year. Other possible drugs for Parkinson’s disease and traumatic brain injury are likely to follow."
- boppo1 5y agoDid the people dumping ice on their heads contribute in any material way?
- xibalba 5y agoI imagine some number of them endured brain damage as part of the increasingly acrobatic nature of that "challenge". So maybe they will be downstream beneficiaries to the extent this drug's development advances the field of neural regeneration.
- sp332 5y ago$220 million, which funded research that discovered a third gene usable as a target for new therapies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Bucket_Challenge#Impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Bucket_Challenge#Impact
- pvarangot 5y agoThis is the molecule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRIB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRIB
- dekhn 5y agoNice symmetry.
- amatecha 5y ago
- QuercusMax 5y agoAt least two, including Verily. Google Research also does a lot of health research - I work in a group called Health AI.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- elwell 5y agoI thought this post was good news?
- Guest42 5y agoI’d be concerned about the ethics they apply to health products given the changes that have happened over the years with search, email, and android.
- xvector 5y agoIt's absurd to complain about this when they are one of the few institutions working on fighting aging, arguably the most important problem humanity has ever faced.
- amatecha 5y agoYeah, it sounds great now. There's no way I want a multinational corp with unprecedented vision into our private lives also researching and producing medical treatments.
- Jensson 5y agoWhy would that be a problem? If they can user their ad-money to help cure people how is that a bad thing?
- forgotmyoldacc 5y agoNo surprise, there's already a subreddit dedicated to people trying out this experimental molecule: https://reddit.com/r/isrib https://reddit.com/r/isrib
- mtsr 5y agoYou should probably link to https://old.reddit.com/r/isrib https://old.reddit.com/r/isrib instead, which doesn’t block mobile users that don’t use the official app.
- cma 5y agoSharing this slows down the web 0.0 movement reddit, twitter, and instagram are pioneering.
- cheschire 5y agoThe World Wide Dots, rather than web.
- dragonwriter 5y agoIsn't it Web 1.5-ish? E.g., we have browsers but devs aren't satisfied with them as app platforms, so they use various techniques (in “original” web 1.5, applets or plugins or downloading a file that would be opened by a native app) to use web links to trigger running an app in a native, or at least more-to-the-devs-liking, environment rather than using web-native tech?
- cma 5y agoI assumed they just want notifcation permissions to spam people that don't know how to turn it off, so they can hijack their attention, and location permissions to make their ads more valuable through spying.
- b112 5y agoThat and your contact list, phone call history, sms history, etc. Gotta build that relationship tree!
- manmal 5y agoISRIB (the molecule discussed in the article) seems _very_ promising for brain health. But people who (recklessly?) self-experimented with it had strange cardiac issues. A study on dogs discovered heart anomalies. It’s nicely summarized here: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/isrib-to-treat-me-cfs.82311/page-2#post-2322603 https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/isrib-to-treat-me-cf...
- bpodgursky 5y agoIf we pair ISRIB with pig heart transplants it's a side-effect free way to boost cognitive function though.
- soco 5y agoThere we have it, yet another way to get those prion diseases...
- manmal 5y agoPerhaps a similar molecule can be found instead which does not have this problem. Or another compound can be added to prevent heart damage.
- bpodgursky 5y agoIt's probably going to be interpreted as cynical b/c it's HN but I do honestly believe that solving heart function will be lot easier than solving cognitive decline, and a win on cognitive decline is huge news (hopefully not paired with not pig hearts, but it's a reasonable proof of concept).
- redisman 5y agoSounds very cyber punk.
- sdenton4 5y agoOpen heart surgery - let alone replacement - isn't likely to be side effect free in our lifetime. A detached sternum is also a side effect, after all, requiring a couple months to recover to basic function...
- transitory_pce 5y agoJaw dropping molecule supremacy breakthrough
- dpratt 5y ago
- all2 5y agoThis is fair commentary for any under-regulated industry. I say that as a staunch "stay out of my business" conservative. Proper regulation ensures that companies are financially vested in the well-being of those they affect. Whether or not pharma in the US is properly regulated to ensure the well-being of their consumers is... debatable.
- ryan93 5y agoAre they forcibly injecting you? This is for people with desperate symptoms who are willing to take on more risk. I have no opinion on its efficacy fwiw.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jmcgough 5y agoI think you mean neurodegenerative diseases, not neurovegetative?
- joak 5y agoOops, yes, you are right. I failed to notice a wrong "autocorrection" from the virtual keyboard on my phone. It is neurodegenerative disease... But now the title is locked: I cannot edit it anymore. Thanks
- floatingatoll 5y agoI emailed the mods a link to your comment using the footer Contact link, since they can bypass the lockout.
- dang 5y agoFixed above. Thanks!
- paxys 5y agoI'm curious why it is referred to as "molecule" everywhere. It may be a molecule, but...so is everything else. This is the first time I have seen this term used to describe a drug or treatment.
- ALittleLight 5y agoAtoms aren't molecules.
- engineer_22 5y agoI laughed out loud.
- CoastalCoder 5y agoI'm curious as well. Maybe it's only a "drug" after they've combined the active ingredient with specific fillers, buffers, etc.?
- mft_ 5y agoIt’s standard terminology in the pharma world.
- ozzy6009 5y agoThere is a distinction in drug development between the biologics (large proteins, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalimumab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalimumab, molecular weight ~144kDa), and small molecules https://www.nuventra.com/resources/blog/small-molecules-versus-biologics/ https://www.nuventra.com/resources/blog/small-molecules-vers...
- astrange 5y agoI've always wondered[1] if there are "large molecule" drugs. [1] but not enough to look it up
- xiphias2 5y agoCalico has a very strange pipeline of drugs that don't have much in common. The last paper about Yamamaca factors looked quite interesting, but Altos is much more focused on understanding just that one technology. Other successful new companies are platform companies, which Calico isn't.
- wantsanagent 5y ago*Yamanaka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinya_Yamanaka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinya_Yamanaka
- sangnoir 5y ago> Calico has a very strange pipeline of drugs that don't have much in common Aren't they all related to fighting the effects of aging, which is the company mission? I've observed that when some people have solved their money problems, the next challenge they face is their own aging and mortality - so they try to solve for that too.
- xiphias2 5y agoThis is true, I'm also in that category of people: I'm rich enough that money is not a problem for me, but too poor to invest in solving aging meaningfully. What Calico didn't get right is that it was super secretive for a long time and not collaborated with the underfunded antiaging community. It got better in the last few years, but I have much more hopes for Altos (and I really hope people there push back on being secretive on something, where making the highest possible return is not the most important goal for the investors).
- whatshisface 5y ago"In the 1980s and 1990s, Walter demonstrated that when too many unfolded or misfolded proteins—which are characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases—were detected inside a cell, it triggered the equivalent of an emergency shutoff switch that halted all protein construction until the problem was solved. The action, which Walter dubbed the “unfolded protein response,” was akin to a blaring red alert at a busy worksite, stopping work; cellular repair crews would then converge on the site, attempt to fix the problem, and if all else failed, eventually order the cell to commit suicide." So... if the body will naturally restart protein production when the problem is resolved, and if ISRIB forces it to restart without solving the problem... Is this going to result in a few months of improved performance followed by a collapse as cells start dying for good?
- ac2u 5y agoOr a recipe for Prions? Note: I have no idea what I’m talking about I’m just playing the Jeff Goldblum part.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- vmception 5y agoneurovegetative? is that what we’re doing now? its like something I would say in my comedy skit before doing a Bill Burr style impression of someone on life support before insulting the audience for laughing. and then complain that everyone’s too sensitive.
- bostonsre 5y agoWhy is the word so bad? Not sure if it's a real word or not, but it seems apt. Someone that is brain dead is referred to as someone in a vegetative state and someone that has some neurons that ceased to function could maybe be referred as neurovegetative. But that kind of makes it sound like the person is completely brain dead. Maybe partial neurovegatative state would be better?
- vmception 5y agoOnly because its made up when we already have a word for it. Its not toooo bad since it conveys a particular state of neurodegeneration.
- joak 5y agoMy mistake... I meant neurodegenerative.
- formvoltron 5y agoAccording to the Huberman podcast, simply elevating your legs at night can improve the glymphatic system's ability to clear out junk from our brains. I haven't been able to find any links to actual studies on that though.
- theunixbeard 5y agoWouldn't it be elevating your head, rather than your legs? Most sources I've seen[1] that discuss inclining your bed have your head be higher up than your legs. [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=incline+your+bed https://www.google.com/search?q=incline+your+bed
- rhexs 5y agoI assume elevating the legs would increase blood flow to the brain? Elevating the head would presumably slightly do the opposite?
- cma 5y agoWhen your foot is swollen from a sprained ankle people recommend elevating it to "drain" it (I'm not sure if that is the real explanation for why, could just lower blood flow and not drain anything).
- darawk 5y agoFeel like I was just reading a comment on here today, in another thread, about how those stupid Google billionaires wasted all their money on this dumb Calico thing that will never amount to anything.
- alphabetting 5y agoGoogle not innovating is one of the most common false narratives I see on HN
- supperburg 5y agoI was a part of a group of people who obtained and took ISRIB a year ago. We made contact with another group from the Baltic’s who had a chemist in their ranks who had already synthesized and taken it, before we took delivery of ours. The most important thing I learned is that you form a tolerance to it. At least that’s what the experiential effects indicated. One person took it and developed heart rhythm problems. Another person took it and became full of energy. Some people reported being much smarter and being able to socialize at a much higher level than before. Some people said they had hyper realistic dreams and compared it to schizophrenia. There were many stories but I can’t remember them all. I’m the end nobody took it long term. The NMR results made it clear that everyone was taking pure ISRIB and not some adulterant. One person said he gave it to his grandmother with Alzheimer’s and it made her better but she died shortly afterward. Some people said this is normal and it was a coincidence. We don’t know. I never took it because right before we had secured a supplier I had a bad reaction to another experimental drug which has given me a permanent injury.
- jasonhansel 5y agoThe original article from which this is excerpted: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/25/1031783/isrib-molecule-treat-brain-injuries-memory/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/25/1031783/isrib-mo... Honestly, the tone of this article is so hyperenthusiastic that it makes me skeptical. Calling something a "miracle molecule" and describing it as a potential panacea without strong evidence doesn't give me confidence; it sounds more like a sales pitch for a dietary supplement. > the list of potential therapeutic applications for that molecule sounds almost too good to be true. Maybe...because it is too good to be true? edit: Apparently ISRIB is already being sold by various online vendors, much to the dismay of Walter himself: https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/28/memory-isrib-peter-walter/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/28/memory-isrib-peter-walte...
- immibis 5y agoI can't complain about people doing medical research for good, but it's kinda strange that we live in a world where we can't have medical research unless online ads.
- dannykwells 5y agoThis is false. Calico is the exception, not the rule, and even they receive money from big pharma. For the most part, we have new drugs because we have older drugs that generate revenue (from Medicare / taxpayers).
- aprao 5y agoThis made me recall Nick Lane's thoughts on anti-oxidants and how they interfere with stress signals sent by cell (which is not an obviously good thing): https://nautil.us/issue/36/aging/yes-life-in-the-fast-lane-kills-you https://nautil.us/issue/36/aging/yes-life-in-the-fast-lane-k...
- alpineidyll3 5y agoThe interesting story here is why Calico would license the molecule whereas traditional pharma was not as interested. Age related incurable conditions are the happiest targets for blockbuster drugs. In all likelihood, someone with actual domain expertise would realize that there was already data which indicated the drug wouldn't make it to market. The team with the rights seized the moment of silicon valley longevity hype, and good for them.
- ErikCorry 5y ago"find it three times faster than mice that had received sham injections" We are worried about placebo effects in mice now?
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoWhat if it would be from the pain/stress of getting an injection?