Necessity is the mother of invention, so the saying goes. Sometimes it is also the father. The father in this case is Dr. Tony Reid, previously the Primary Investigator (PI) on the first-in-human (FIH) clinical trial for nibrozetone (RRx-001) (see blog post entitled...
“The meek shall inherit…the Words of the Week.” NO Definition: Noun: A colorless gas and a stable free radical that nibrozetone (RRx-001) generates at extremely high levels in hypoxic/reductive environments. Example sentence: “NO laughing matter: NO, which stands for...
Ok, so that just happened. Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to, ahem, a measuring contest. Well, not to wade headlong (or with another anatomical part) into this debate, but let’s just say, Mr. Musk, that size isn’t everything. Case in point: AdAPT-001. This is an...
This summer Barbie—and hot pink Barbiecore—are everywhere. And so is the plastic, recycled or otherwise, that the iconic Barbie dolls, dreamhouses, playsets, games, and pink convertibles are made from and wrapped in. With over a billion dolls sold worldwide and a new...
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression. (See blog post entitled, AdAPT-001 and the Bill of Rights.) AdAPT-001, a modified common cold adenovirus, which carries a transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) trap,...
“WOW (Word of the Week) your friends” Nibrozetone Definition: Noun: The international nonproprietary name (INN) for RRx-001. Example sentence: “Nibrozetone (RRx-001) plus a platinum doublet is under evaluation in a Phase 3 small cell lung cancer (SCLC) trial called...
Welcome back, everyone. We hope you enjoyed a fun and safe 4th of July. Did you know that the right to assemble in the name of fun, franks, fireworks, and fender-to-fender traffic this 4th was guaranteed not by the 1776 Declaration of Independence document but by the...
“Nab a better vocab” Epilogism Definition: Noun: An epilogism refers to deliberately eye- or ear-catching new phrases, words, or abbreviations that are related to EpicentRx or its therapies. Epilogisms plural: Noun: Epilogisms refer to more than one inventive new...
One of the most quotable movies of all time is Jerry Maguire. The plot centers on the unintentional journey of an ultra-slick sports agent starring Tom Cruise that puts aside his cynicism and resets his moral compass at great cost to himself both personally and...
“Make your vocab fab” Pretection Definition: Protection of non-diseased tissues and organs through pretreatment only. -pretect verb Example sentence: “On par with early detection is pretection”. “An ounce of pretection is worth a pound of cure”. “The universal police...
"Rehab your vocab" AdAPT Definitions: Noun: An attenuated adenoviral platform that expresses proteins, usually those that are immunostimulatory in tumors or other diseased tissues. Verb: to make fit for a new use by modification. Example sentences: “AdAPT-001,...
Exactly how the microbiome affects human health is a question mark. But that it is important to human health is well established. Period. Or rather colon. Over 100 trillion. No, that is not (yet) the size of the U.S. national debt. Rather, it is the number of bacteria...
The sixth sense. The child actor, Haley Joel Osment, famously had it in the movie of the same name. The phrase describes keen intuition or clairvoyance as embodied by the Haley Joel Osment movie character who, it is revealed at the end, communicates with a ghost in...
The adage, “there is nothing new under the sun,” (or the streetlight) particularly applies to the pharmaceutical industry whose modus operandi is to recycle, repurpose and rebrand old drugs as new or “next generation” ones based on only minor modifications, which may...
The art career of Pablo Picasso is known for two periods: the “Blue Period” in which he primarily used colder shades of blue and blue-green, and the “Rose Period” where he switched to warmer pink and orange colors. Not to compare ourselves even remotely with one of...
We just watched the extraordinary Michael J. Fox documentary, Still, on Apple TV by Davis Guggenheim. Of the many adjectives that we might use to describe the Fox-narrated documentary based on his memoirs such as inspiring, uplifting, poignant, touching, revealing,...
From Star Wars Wiki Page May 4th, also known as Star Wars Day to obsessed fans like us, is less than a week away and only lasts for a mere 24 hours, but to quote Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, “The Force will be with you, always”. The proton motive force (PMF), that is....
Chances are, if you own a television—or if you’ve been to the dentist recently—you’ve come across trendy and formulaic home remodeling shows like Fixer Upper, Grand Designs, Trading Spaces, Flip or Flop, Home Town, Property Brothers, Love It or List It, or House...
Ever since Parkinson’s Disease (PD) was officially described as a neurological syndrome by the English surgeon, geologist, and paleontologist, Dr. James Parkinson, over two centuries ago in an 1817 treatise entitled, “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy”, the only way to...
Ok, so everyone likes a good “whodunit”. This is the genre of classic “pure puzzle” mysteries where the dramatic final “reveal” of the culprit, the person “who did it”, takes place at the end or denouement after a long suspense-filled buildup, with plot twists and red...
The big news at EpicentRx last week is that its lead small molecule, RRx-001, received Fast Track designation for the prevention/amelioration of severe oral mucositis (SOM). What is oral mucositis, how does RRx-001 prevent/ameliorate it, and why is this big news?...
From https://www.wikihow.com/Speak-With-an-Australian-Accent Noice is the Australization of the word that the rest of the English-speaking world pronounces (more or less) as “nice”. See previous blog post entitled, “How (Not) to Speak Australian” for a link to a...
“The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage”. This is from Mark Russell, the famous satirist and “scientific” theorist. Another theory, ours, is that Jupiter, the ‘romantic’ gravitational ‘partner’ of...
G’day, mate. In case you didn’t know, that’s Australian for good day, friend. However, to our untrained ears, as Americans, it sounds like, “good eye might.” More like “good ear might” since we’re talking about Australian accents. In the 1980s, Foster’s drink company...
The maxim that “a man’s home is his castle” is made literal by tumors, which firmly entrench themselves behind castle-like barriers as a defense against the attritional war waged against them by chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy. These barriers are...
On Sunday, March 12 at 2 a.m., don’t forget to advance your clocks forward one hour for Daylight Saving Time (DST). (Remember spring forward, fall back). This applies to most of the country, Hawaii, Arizona, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands excepted....
In a TV review about a serial killer, we came across this pithy phrase: “all killer, no filler” (AKNF). AKNF denotes no extraneous content i.e., no filler, which perfectly encapsulates the minimalist design and effectiveness of the oncolytic adenovirus, AdAPT-001....
“Anergy” is a commonly used term in immuno-oncology, particularly in conjunction with T cells. So, what exactly does it mean and in what context is it used? The dictionary defines it as the “absence of the normal immune response to a particular antigen or allergen.” A...
It may seem belated to ask, given that we are now in February, but for Christmas, were you naughty or nice? For the small molecule, RRx-001, the answer was (and is) both. Under inflammatory and low oxygen or hypoxic conditions, which are present almost exclusively in...
For EpicentRx, 2023 has already been transforming—as in transforming growth factor beta (TGF-ß), which is overexpressed in most tumors. TGF-ß is a cytokine, a small protein that cells use to communicate with each other, normally released in wound areas following...
“It’s like Avastin on steroids!” This direct quote came courtesy of an executive at a major pharmaceutical company after he reviewed the mechanism of action of RRx-001 and learned about the results of a Phase 2 randomized trial called ROCKET of RRx-001 vs. regorafenib...
A recent email from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) to research partners included a quote from Michael J. Fox himself in which the actor, optimist, and recent Oscar Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award winner, referred to Parkinson’s disease...
¡Más que una Radio! The names of companies, especially biotech companies, are often non-intuitive, hard to pronounce and even harder to spell, sometimes on purpose, making it next to impossible to figure out the general focus of these companies let alone exactly what...
To readers of this blog, whoever you are, and however few or many you may be, Happy January 2023. January is named after Janus, the Roman God of beginnings and endings, usually depicted with two faces: one looking forward into the future and one looking backward at...
San Antonio is home to the Alamo where in 1836, according to the mythic story, a handful of outgunned and outmanned Texans made a final last stand against a besieging Mexican army during the Texas War for Independence. In 2022, almost two centuries after the Battle of...
The 2022 Inflammasome Summit is in the books—well, more accurately, in the notebooks of the in-person attendees who took copious notes. TBH, we haven’t witnessed scribbling like that since freshman history class. Which makes sense because as first in-person...
Interested in a wicked good analogy? Well look no further than the 30-minute presentation given by Drs. Bryan Oronsky and Richard Gordon at the 2022 Inflammasome Therapeutics Summit in Boston, Massachusetts. In the presentation, Dr. Oronsky compared inflammation to...
“Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to San Diego, which, according to Ron Burgundy, the San Diego newscaster played by Will Ferrell in the film, Anchorman, was discovered by the Germans in 1904.” So began the presentation of Dr. Bryan Oronsky, Chief Development...
Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water, and as if we didn’t have enough scary words to contend with, a new one making the rounds is “tripledemic”, involving simultaneous infection with COVID, the flu, and RSV. Yikes…more viral spikes! The proverb...
What do U.S. fraternities and sororities, the Bible, COVID-19 (e.g., the alpha, delta, omicron variants) and EpicentRx’s AdAPT-001 oncolytic adenovirus have in common? Answer: Ancient Greek letters. EpicentRx’s AdAPT-001 oncolytic adenovirus carries a “TGF-beta trap.”...
Two famous quotes attributed to the Great One, ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, “I skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been,” and “you miss 100% of the shots you never take,” perfectly encapsulate the corporate strategy at EpicentRx.
With apologies to Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear for borrowing his “To Infinity and Beyond” catchphrase, EpicentRx has developed and manufactured a Nucleocapsid vaccine, N-finity or N-VAX, for COVID-19, which has the potential to universally protect against all current...
As doctors, we were on the back nine last weekend, working on our slice, and it occurred to us that a good name for a golf magazine, should we ever decide to write one, in all our free time, (snort), is “Of course!” No eye rolling please, c’mon, it’s a legit name....
EpicentRx presents data poster at Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), the leading worldwide cause of dementia or cognitive decline, continues (and will continue) to perplex the medical community until its main causes are...
By EpicentRx Staff When Paul Ehrlich, regarded as the founding father of the modern pharmaceutical industry, coined the term “magic bullet” (“Zauberkugel,” in German) in 1908, he set something in motion. The term is used to signify drugs or therapies that target...
Fun fact: “Adenovirus,” a DNA virus, that has been used as a delivery vehicle for spike-based COVID vaccines, is named from the human adenoids, a tonsil-like organ in the back of the nose, where it was first isolated. The purpose of the adenoids is to fight...
In June, EpicentRx was truly “on the go,” arriving at ASCO in Chicago directly from Scottsdale, Arizona where the company just one day prior presented data on the lipid-lowering effects of its small molecule, RRx-001, at the National Lipid Association (NLA), hence...
On June 3, 2022, at 11 a.m., EpicentRx’s Chief Development Officer Bryan Oronsky and Senior Director of Operations and Corporate Development Scott Caroen traveled from Northern California. There, temperatures are moderate, even in the summer. But then they touched...
"You gotta be moving to trip over something.” To rapt attention in a filled-to-capacity conference hall of the San Francisco Marriott hotel, Dr. Tony R. Reid, an invited speaker of a selected abstract at the International American Thoracic Society (ATS) Conference in...