

Black Plague and HIV resistance in Europe - aswanson
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uol-bdw031005.php

======
rms
It is incorrect to say that the CCR5 delta32 mutation came exclusively from
the plague. It is more likely that it came from smallpox.

The title of this article is even worse, ~10% of people of European descent
are resistant to HIV and 10% of those individuals are practically immune to
HIV. The mutation is more common in people of northern European descent and
some eastern European ethnic groups, like Ashkenazi Jews.

This summary of a paper published in _Nature_ shows that mice with the CCR5
delta32 mutation still get the plague.
[http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_...](http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=22189)
Subscription/university tunnel required for the real paper.

This is another study concluding that smallpox was the more likely selecting
factor for the mutation.
[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=29...](http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=299980)
[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=12...](http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1255746)

This is a personal interest of mine because testing for this mutation is my
startup. <http://www.hivgene.com> There's an enormous amount of untapped
potential with the CCR5 receptor; I wish I had the money to do private
research.

To cure HIV: Start with some adult stem cells from the HIV patient to be
treated, specifically the stem cells that produce T cells. Introduce the 32
base pair deletion in the CCR5 gene and grow the cells in culture. These can
then be "transplanted" back into the patient. These transplanted stem cells
will create HIV immune T cells. Once there are enough immune T cells, the
patient will probably still have HIV, but it will not develop into AIDS. There
will be no chance of rejection since they are the patient's own cells.
Furthermore, since the body does produce antibodies to HIV, these modified T
cells may even be able to fight off the HIV.

To test this, we would get a mouse line, which are genetically very similar to
each other from inbreeding so we won't have to worry about rejection of the
transplants, and introduce the human CCR5 receptor into them. This, in theory,
will allow the mice to be infected with HIV since HIV attaches to the CCR 5
receptor to enter and infect the cell. If this works, we can then try the
technique of taking some of their stem cells, introducing the mutation,
transplanting them back in, and see if their T cell count increases or if the
levels of HIV decrease. It could also be used as a preventative therapy, which
we can also easily test on the mice.

(HIV curing idea is courtesy of my partner, his username is ingenium on here.
If anyone with money is interested in branching out into a different kind of
biotech company, please get in touch with me.)

~~~
aswanson
Why are you not pursuing NSF funding for this research? I am nowhere near as
informed as you on this but there has to be money out there to pursue this
investigation if what you say has even a small chance of working.

~~~
rms
It's an intimidating and overwhelming process. Josh (ingenium) and I went to a
multi-week university seminar for faculty spinning off research into
commercial ventures and the speaker on NSF grants said that it's really tough
to get government grants without hiring a consultant who knows the ins and
outs of the system. This will be something to do as soon as we have a spare
$10,000, but we don't have any spare capital for now.

We also need a PhD on board... we haven't looked for a faculty sponsor because
if we get someone from the University of Pittsburgh on board, Pitt owns all of
our IP. Pitt has a much worse IP policy than many other large universities; PG
and I had this discussion a while ago on here and he posted the link for MIT's
tech transfer policy which was much more reasonable.

Basically, Josh and I aren't qualified to lead the research, in the eyes of
the government. But Josh is pretty good at what he does and I am confident we
could lead a team of Biology PhDs pretty well. They have really low salaries
in Pittsburgh too, $40,000 is the starting salary for a post-doc and $100,000
and a pittance of equity would get you anyone you wanted that didn't have
tenure at a university.

You can also only get NSF/NIH funding if it has been posted as a "Funding
opportunity" or "Funding notice." They don't take unsolicited ideas; they say
in advance what ideas they are funding. I hadn't looked at these for a while
and I see we may have just missed one that may have been relevant. It's not
exactly the idea above and I really don't know if the process is flexible
enough to allow for our adult stem cell treatment.
[http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-
AI-07-014.h...](http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-
AI-07-014.html)

It seems to me that Josh and I aren't going to be able to get government
funding without handing our IP over to the University of Pittsburgh, and I
have no desire to have to deal with academia. So that means we need to wait
until we are independently wealthy to start researching. I also feel that we
kind of have a moral prerogative to get research in this area moving forward,
and I'm not sure what else we can be doing. We've casually mentioned this
treatment technique to various PhDs and MDs and they unanimously say "Yes,
that could work." However, they don't say "That's the best idea I've ever
heard and I'm going to get be your Principal Investigator for an NIH grant."

Can you think of anything else we could be doing? For now, we're just
bootstrapping our genetic testing company and seeing where that takes us.

~~~
yubrew
Credibility is a large hurdle you will need to overcome. No one will want to
talk to you unless you have some big names backing up your research, and
patents showing that you control the IP. In the science world, so much data is
produced that the signal to noise ratio is high, and recognized scientists are
extremely valuable. In other words, you will need to collaborate with
academia, and it's probably better now than later. I suggest pitching your
idea to senior faculty in different universities, especially ones focused in
doing HIV stem cell research. Or perhaps working at someone's lab and setting
up a collaboration with them. From what I understand, grant committees look at
the name first, and then project second.

Salaries alone are nothing in the sciences, but it is expensive to set up your
own lab, and could take years before you have validated that your thing
actually works. For developing diagnostics, I bet there is someone trying to
make a drug or therapy from CCR5. Collaborate with them and make the
diagnostic part.

I know that at Johns Hopkins, anything you develop as an undergrad is 100%
owned by you. Check the IP rights of other schools by talking to their tech
transfer offices, and maybe consider transferring to another school.

Get someone reputable behind you, and then you guys can actually start doing
something.

------
michaelneale
I don't think this is appropriate for hacker news. reddit.com is a better
place for stuff like this.

~~~
rms
Why do you think this?

The intention of Hacker News was not to combine Startup News and
programming.reddit.com. I don't think there is any controversy about the
relevance of pure science on this site.

~~~
aswanson
You might want to try this guy. He has no shortage of capital and seems to be
moving his company in that direction:

<http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._E._Shaw_%26_Co>.

~~~
rms
How exactly would one go about getting in touch with a hedge fund guy without
an introduction? It seems like it would be even more fruitless than just
sending a business plan to a VC.

~~~
aswanson
He was/is on the faculty at Columbia. They have a group dedicated to comp.
biology and they may be interested in modelling the interaction you are
talking about. Associate with some of the professors there in the chem/bio
dept and you may get something going. Drexel University also has a great
IP/funding program, you may want to try them. Do what this woman did:
<http://lungevity.org/uploads/files/WSJ.2007.pdf>. Hell, start a benefit run
or bike ride...something. This line of work is too important rms. Make it
happen.

