Brain-Tools has partnered up with a newly established non-profit group called Hope for Alzheimer's to help get MSF to patients. This group was established by Doug Person, Greg Murray, and Margie Bachman to raise funds for research and development of treatments for Alzheimer's. The group is in the process of filing for 501(c)(3) charity tax designation which will go through by the end of the year, giving donors a tax write off for their contribution. This contribution will then go to help pay for the advanced safety studies and clinical trials yet needed to get MSF to people with Alzheimer's disease.

What's more, because Brain-Tools is intended to sell MSF for a profit we will pay every dime we receive back to the organization on completion of the project. This money will then be redistributed to a new Alzheimer's research project working on a true cure for Alzheimer's! This means that if all goes well, you not only receive a tax write off for your donation, but the donation will get used twice, effectively doubling it.

To check out the Hope for Alzheimer's Foundation website go to http://www.hopeforalzheimers.org/.

FDA Discussions

I mentioned a little while ago that we had been in contact with the FDA about getting some advice on our clinical trial design. That's progressed a bit with some emails back and forth.

We also managed to get in contact with Senator Ron Wyden (OR) who sits on the funding committee of the FDA as well as the committee on aging. Dr. Summerton had dinner with him last Friday and he agreed to help us get in contact with the people we need to talk to at the FDA.

Lo and behold last night Dr. Summerton received a phone call from the FDA asking about our project.

Getting advice from the FDA in our experimental design is absolutely vital in keeping the costs down while simultaneously running an experiment that complies with the quality requirements of the Food and Drug Administration.
 
In the meantime Dr. Moss is trying to get in contact with Governor Rick Perry (TX) To help with a funding proposal to the states while Dr. Summerton has been in contact with Governor John Kitzhaber (OR) to also provide advice on how to level a proposal to the 50 states.

Our First Spot on Television

The KVIA station in El Paso Texas picked up our story yesterday. Whitney Burbank called up Brain-Tools at about two pm looking for Dr. Moss' phone number, and the story ran on the 10:00 news. It was a remarkably fast turnaround and a very well done story.

You can watch the story at their website here.

New Crowdfunding Site: We can take Credit Cards Now!

We have started up a Brain-Tools crowd funding page over at Rockethub to collect contributions to the MSF development project. This site is set up to help fund new start up projects by public contribution, just as we had intended to do with our treatment for Alzheimer's. Our first fundraising goal is $100,000 collected over 90 days which will go to developing our memory tests and pay for equipment we'll be using to safely manufacture MSF for our long term safety study (the second stage described in our funding plan).

Please take a moment to help us with the first leg of our crowd funding push to make MSF available to Alzheimer's patients. Share this site with anyone that would have interest in a more effective treatment for the debilitating effects of memory loss caused by this disease.

Brain-Tools Crowdfunding Project 

Podcast on Alzheimer's Speaks Radio

Dr. Moss gave an interview on Alzheimer's speaks radio today which you can listen to below on his experiences with developing MSF and how we plan to proceed from there. You can also listen to the interview on the Alzheimer's speaks site here. The interview with Dr. Moss begins at 61:34.

Listen to internet radio with Alzheimers Speaks Radio on Blog Talk Radio

Assays for Memory Improvement After Treatment with MSF in Alzheimer's Patients

        I had the opportunity to see the memory assays we'll be giving to Alzheimer's patients to assess their improvement, and I loved them. They were easy to understand, could be given quickly without too much strain on the subject, and the peer reviewed research indicated they were exceptionally good at discerning memory abilities in both Alzheimer's patients and normals. The tests were researched by Dr. Awh and Dr. Vogel, and they are currently working on formatting the tests so that they can be given remotely by trained testers over Skype or a similar sort of software. This is pretty important if you're going to be testing 400 people a week over a potentially very large area. Of course in addition to these quick assessments our Contract Research Organizations (CROs) will also be using the same methods that Aricept used to test donepezil on a roughly monthly basis so that our they can determine relative effectiveness of the drugs.

        In the meantime Dr. Summerton, co-manager of Brain-Tools, has written our first letter to the FDA about helping us set up Adaptive trials, and we just got our first responses! Details will be forthcoming.

Getting the Word Out

Website Completed

        Although we've been tweaking it a bit here and there, the website has been pretty much completed, with all of the information on our project to get MSF to Alzheimer's patients available now. One of the key features up there right now is an animation Jon Perry of Stated Clearly created for us to explain the mechanism of MSF's restoral of memory in sufferers of Alzheimer's. The animation explains why MSF performs so remarkably compared to what's available on the market, and does so for a general audience.

        With the completion of the website we've started focusing on how to best disseminate our project to the public. Because we rely on contributions from the public as opposed to traditional venture capitalists we have a lot more stake in having our project heard about by private individuals. Whereas a mainline Biopharmaceutical company might put out a few press releases to drum up enthusiasm in their existing investors, we need everyone with a stake in Alzheimer's treatments to hear about us. Currently Dr. Moss is working with a PR consultant and some volunteer assistance from his daughters to write letters to talk shows, podcasts and blogs asking if they'll share our story. We should start sending the letters out within the next few days, so check back here to see if we end up on anything you listen to. If you have any suggestions for slightly obscure podcasts or talk shows we should write to, please send them to me at patrick.summerton@brain-tools.com.

And now for the video I was touting in the first paragraph!