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First Parkinson's patients scheduled for treatment in Foundation-funded study at UVA
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Jeffrey Elias, MD
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Focused ultrasound research will enter new territory in October when University of Virginia neurosurgeon W. Jeffrey Elias, MD performs the first investigational treatments on patients with tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease. The study, which is being funded in part by the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, will enroll 30 patients and use a double-blinded protocol to randomly assign them to either treatment or control (sham treatment) groups. Designed to evaluate focused ultrasound's safety and preliminary efficacy in treating tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease, the study will follow patients' progress for one year.
Initially, 20 of the 30 study patients will be assigned to the treatment group. The remaining 10 patients will receive a sham treatment. Three months later, the 10 will be eligible to cross over into the treatment group and receive focused ultrasound therapy.
Konofagou receives Foundation Research Award to study FUS-mediated treatment for neurological and neurodegenerative diseases
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Elisa Konofagou, PhD
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Elisa Konofagou, PhD envisions a day when effective treatments and cures are available for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and amythrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Toward that end, she has been researching noninvasive ways to temporarily open the protective blood-brain barrier that now limits the delivery of most systemically-administered treatments for those diseases.
The Focused Ultrasound Foundation is supporting her work via a $100,000 research award that will enable Konofagou, an associate professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Columbia University in New York, to conduct a preclinical study that will explore the use of focused ultrasound in opening the blood-brain barrier opening to facilitate drug delivery in neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.
"The underlying hypothesis of this study is that delivery of therapeutic molecules is safe and effective through the blood-brain barrier using focused ultrasound," Konofagou explains. "Our preliminary results have shown that the FUS technique can induce blood-brain barrier opening entirely noninvasively, selectively and be monitored with MRI at sub-millimeter resolution in vivo." During the study, Konofagou will test and demonstrate delivery of neurotrophic factors to the hippocampus and putamen regions of the brain and assess the safety of the focused ultrasound method.
Fundraising the entrepreneurial way - Howard and Fredi Stevenson join Foundation Council
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Howard and Fredi Stevenson
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Forbes Magazine called him a "$1 billion fund-raiser," an apt moniker for Howard Stevenson, PhD Sarofim-Rock Baker Foundation Professor and Senior Associate Dean at Harvard Business School, and Director of Publishing and Chair of the board for Harvard Business Publishing Company.
His wife, Fredi, is a powerhouse is her own right. A member of numerous nonprofit boards, she co-founded Summer Search Boston, an organization that supports hundreds of low-income high school youth each year in continuing their education and becoming responsible and altruistic leaders — 100% of participating students have graduated from high school, and 94% have gone on to college.
In addition to the Foundation's philanthropic mission of helping patients, the Stevensons are intrigued by challenges to healthcare innovation. They see focused ultrasound as the kind of novel approach that could transform the treatment landscape for multiple diseases, and as a result, could potentially change the entire medical development paradigm.
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Celebration of Science aims to re-energize America's commitment to bioscience
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| Michael Milken |
Billed as "three days to change the world," the September 7-9 Celebration of Science event in Washington, DC brought together more than 1,000 of the world's most brilliant and influential individuals from the public and private sectors. In panels and talks, they gathered to share ideas and deliver the message that America should recommit itself to bioscience.
Inspiration for the event came from philanthropist and FasterCures Chairman Michael Milken. He wrote, "Today's bioscience revolution can bring more benefit to the world than all the scientific progress of modern history. It has the potential to address several pressing global challenges — energy, the environment, defense and the supply of food and water. Most important, bioscience is our key to unlocking the causes and potential cures of disease."
The Focused Ultrasound Foundation had several representatives at the event, including Chairman Neal Kassell, MD who participated in a special retreat, "Accelerating Innovation in the Bioscience Revolution," on September 7. Kassell also spoke about focused ultrasound during a panel discussion on September 9, entitled, "Biological Effects of Physical Energy."
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