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uspto.gov inventor search faustman
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while your father does not want you impaired or to suffer a premature death he is wasting your time and inrellectual devrlopment by not presenting you with material and options that may be able to change the course if your lufe. see sbove
the trashy newsday article did not ask about the invidence of autoimmune diseases in your family
read and consider and act
Long Island man to walk from Times Square to Montauk
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Dr. Denise Faustman
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Our Phase II Trial Has Launched Read the press release
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Your donation will directly support our Phase II research.
Raised to date: $20 million
Our total need: $25.2 million.
Raised to date: $20 million
Our total need: $25.2 million.
The Faustman Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital
Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, is Director of the Immunobiology Laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her current research focuses on discovering and developing new treatments for type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases, including Crohn's disease, lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren's syndrome, and multiple sclerosis.She is currently leading a human clinical trial program testing the efficacy of the BCG vaccine for reversal of long-term type 1 diabetes. Positive results from the Phase I study were reported in 2012.
Dr. Faustman's type 1 diabetes research has earned her notable awards such as the Oprah Achievement Award for “Top Health Breakthrough by a Female Scientist” (2005), the "Women in Science Award" from the American Medical Women’s Association and Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company for her contributions to autoimmune disease research (2006), and the Goldman Philanthropic Partnerships/Partnership for Cures “George and Judith Goldman Angel Award” for research to find an effective treatment for type 1 diabetes (2011). Her previous research accomplishments include the first scientific description of modifying donor tissue antigens to change their foreignness. This achievement earned her the prestigious National Institutes of Health and National Library of Medicine “Changing the Face of Medicine” Award (2003) as one of 300 American physicians (one of 35 in research) honored for seminal scientific achievements in the United States.
Dr. Faustman earned her MD and PhD from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and completed her internship, residency, and fellowships in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Michael Ehrlich, with daughter Rachael, 13, near their home in South Setauket, Oct. 14, 2017. Ehrlich will walk from Manhattan to Montauk starting Oct. 16, 2017, to raise money for Type 1 diabetes research. Photo Credit: Gordon M. Grant
On Monday morning, Michael Ehrlich is planning to go out for a stroll — a 125-mile stroll.
His nearly three-day journey from Times Square to Montauk is part of a personal quest to raise $25,000 for JDRF, a leading funder of Type 1 diabetes research around the world. His daughter, Rachael Ehrlich, 13, was diagnosed last fall.
“I wanted to do something that was different and sounded impossible, but was really doable,” said Michael Ehrlich, 46, a senior mortgage specialist at Thomson Reuters.
Here's How Lee Iacocca Wants To Cure Diabetes
In the late 1990s, former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca handed more than $10 million to Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) scientist Denise Faustman and instructed her to transform an ancient tuberculosis vaccine into a cure for type 1 diabetes. Today Faustman announced the latest milestone in that project—FDA clearance to launch a large trial in people based on what her lab learned from that early research. And the 90-year-old auto magnate continues to fund her studies through the Iacocca Family Foundation, which he founded in 1984 in memory of his late wife, Mary, who died of complications from diabetes.
The trial, announced at the American Diabetes Association conference in Boston, will investigate whether treating patients with the vaccine, bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), will improve natural insulin production in adult patients whose pancreases still produce small but detectable levels of the hormone. If it works, BCG might one day be used to essentially reverse the disease in some patients—even adults who have suffered from diabetes from childhood—says Faustman, director of MGH’s immunobiology laboratory and the study’s principal investigator. And it wouldn’t cost much, either, since BCG has been around for nearly a century and is available in generic form.
“We’re not only going for something cheap and safe, but also trying to figure out a good treatment that might reverse the most severe form of the disease in people who are 15 or 20 years out,” Faustman says.
Here’s how BCG works: The vaccine prompts the immune system to make tumor necrosis factor (TNF), a protein that destroys the abnormal T-cells that interfere with the pancreas’s ability to make insulin. That elevation of TNF has already been well-proven to be quite therapeutic in some settings—BCG, in fact, is approved by the FDA not only to prevent tuberculosis but also to treat bladder cancer.
Faustman’s lab spent years doing basic science experiments to show TNF can temporarily eliminate the abnormal T-cells that cause type 1 diabetes. Iacocca’s foundation, which had been supporting some of that work since coming across the lab’s earliest studies, invited Faustman to present the results of her research at a board meeting in 1999, she recalls.
Iacocca asked Faustman why she wasn’t using BCG to cure diabetes in mouse models of the disease. “I said, 'It’s too early. We need to do more basic science,'” Faustman recalls. “He looked at me and said, 'You know, it’s my money.' We made a deal that if I would aggressively go forward in the mouse he would support me. He gets the credit for supporting the basic science that led to the discovery that TNF is needed in type 1 diabetes.”
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With continued funding from the foundation and other supporters, Faustman launched a small phase 1 clinical trial in people designed to prove that BCG would kill the bad T-cells and stimulate good T-cells in a way that would restore insulin secretion. It worked, though the positive effects were transient. So Faustman started planning a larger phase 2 study to prove that regular injections of BCG, followed by periodic booster shots, would produce a sustained response, and to determine whether that response might improve over time as the pancreas regenerates.
Still, Faustman’s team had to overcome one big hurdle before the FDA would approve the phase 2 trial: a massive shortage of BCG. Two of the biggest producers of the vaccine, Merck and Sanofi , have suffered production problems, leading to huge manufacturing delays. The issue has left some bladder cancer patients in the lurch, as reportedrecently in the Wall Street Journal. Faustman and her colleagues, who had been using Sanofi’s vaccine, had to go looking for an alternate supplier.
So MGH collaborated with a division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization to secure the vaccine for the trial from a drug manufacturer that’s run by the Japanese government, Faustman says. “We had to get the FDA to certify that [the manufacturer's] processes are up to U.S. standards so the BCG can be used for trials,” she says. “This is not something that academics normally do, but we were determined.”
Faustman’s team has raised $19 million of the $25 million needed to complete the phase 2 study, thanks largely to the Iococca Family Foundation, which continues to be the project’s biggest source of support. “I made a promise to my late wife to find a cure for type 1 diabetes,” Iococca said in a statement. “Now my family and I look forward to the continued progress and are proud to support this effort to get closer to that goal.”
Faustman’s plan is to enroll 150 adults with diabetes, some of whom will receive BCG, with the others getting a placebo. The patients will have two injections four weeks apart and then annual injections over four years. They will continue to take insulin, though the research team will be watching closely to see if the BCG reduces the amount of insulin needed to maintain blood-sugar control, Faustman says. “We expect the metabolic effect to occur gradually over five years,” she says.
However it turns out, Faustman says, she will always be grateful to Iacocca for having the patience to continue funding the BCG research. “Many other people support us now, but the Iacocca Foundation makes a huge contribution to these trials,” she says. “He sees the big picture and is willing to look for ways to change the paradigm.”
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The South Setauket resident will set out at 9:30 a.m. with a backpack with water, snacks and $50 in refueling money, “just in case.”
At a brisk pace with no breaks, Ehrlich estimates he’ll reach Montauk sometime Wednesday before 6 p.m.
“He really cares and wants to make a difference and help,” Rachael Ehrlich said.
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While JDRF has its own awareness walk, Michael Ehrlich wanted to go above and beyond on his own timeline, allowing him to collect as much money as possible.
“We have a lot of people who walk for us, but usually it’s part of our JDRF walk, which is about three miles,” said Jason Rice, development director for JDRF’s NYC/Long Island chapter.
As of Saturday, Michael Ehrlich had raised about $20,000 in three weeks and spent so much time sharing Rachael’s story and his own training process, “it’s almost like a full-time job,” he joked.
There is no known cause or cure for Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes. In people with Type 1, the pancreas stops producing insulin, which the body uses to regulate blood sugar and turn food into energy. The only treatment is insulin injections.
Rachael Ehrlich was diagnosed last year after fainting on a family vacation. She now has a handle on testing her blood and knows what to eat — her dad’s breakfast burritos with beans and avocado are her new favorite meal, she said.
She’s an avid soccer player, but being an athlete with diabetes is challenging. She was hoping to get a special insulin pump, and when their insurance company wouldn’t pay for it, Michael Ehrlich found inspiration in his daughter’s disappointment.
“I told her, they are working on a cure, why don’t we do something to help?” he said.
In August, Ehrlich tested his endurance by walking partway home from his Times Square office to the Floral Park Long Island Rail Road station — it took more than five hours, but it showed he could make his project work.
Then Rachael and her dad started riding bikes together. Michael Ehrlich graduated to day- or weekend-long walks to the Hamptons or Orient Point. He ultimately lost 25 pounds by walking about 40 miles a week.
Ehrlich posts constant updates to his Facebook page, Manhattan2Montauk, and will livestream his location during the walk.
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It’s not so much the walk that’s valuable to him as the community it built as the day approaches, Ehrlich said.
“I’m now realizing there’s so many people suffering from this or who have children with this,” he said. “Doing this walk, I’ve been connected with dozens of people.”
“I’m really proud of him,” Rachael Ehrlich said.
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