Meeting with Dr. Faustman, again

Yesterday I was fortunate to spend an hour with Dr. Faustman while she was being interviewed by David Edelman of DiabetesDaily.com.

He's going to post the interview once he's had a chance to transcribe it (be patient, this will take time).

Dr. Faustman did an excellent job of explaining how they arrived at the approach being trialled, to use BCG as part of a possible type 1 diabetes cure. The current trial (and remember that many trials fail) is to determine whether a low dose of BCG has any effect on the bad T-cells. The trial completion and trial results won't happen until sometime next year. Remember, these are phase 1 trials and many phase 1 trials fail.

I asked her how much it would cost to complete phase 2 trials. The price tag is $25 million. That's a lot of fund raising and asking people for support.

They can't do trials in multiple centers because the equipment they've developed for testing results is not portable. In one case they moved a piece of equipment across the lab. It took 9 MONTHS to recalibrate it and get it working again.

We saw the equipment (no photos allowed). It's complex and large. The size of a full sized fridge on its side. To take a blood sample and extract the T cells takes an entire day. This is not fast work. They're doing it in a methodical and painstaking ways. At the same time she's taken some bold steps to move forward when others might have held back.

Each time I've met Dr. Faustman I've been impressed by her ability to clearly explain complex processes and experiments in layperson terms. She clearly understands the urgency of this work, but she needs to do it 'the right way' so that the results cannot be questioned. Remember when her original work was published in 2001, 2002 a lot of scientists did not believe the approach would work. It's now been replicated in several other labs.

I know the timescales aren't fast enough for any of us. This type of scientific experimentation takes time and a lot of effort. The lab has had delays in the past because they were waiting for funding. The best way we can speed the process up is to continue to fund the work.

I'm hoping to run in a triathlon later this year and use that for fund-raising. I also use the (small) ad revenue from my diabetes search engine to support the lab. There are many other ways to sponsor the work of the lab.

Once David blogs about the interview, I'll update this post with a pointer to it.

Labels: faustman, fundraising, research, trial

posted by Bernard @ 9:57 AM