Silicon Valley's Mike Homer Teams up with UCSF Scientists for Fight of His Life
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Mike Homer
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On June 14, 2007, 300 of Silicon Valley's top leaders gathered at the invitation of the Homers and their friends to hear the UCSF team discuss the disease and what needs to be done to accelerate progress in treating it. The event was hosted by Bill Campbell, chair of the board and former CEO of Intuit Inc. and a leading advisor to technology companies, and Ron Conway, founder and general partner of Angel Investors, a major investor in technology companies and vice chair of the board of the UCSF Foundation. The goal - turn out for Mike, in a fight for one of their own. (59:30 video segment)
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What they learned: Most cases of CJD develop sporadically, for no apparent reason. A minority of cases are inherited. One percent of cases develop as a result of infection, such as from eating the prion-tainted beef diagnosed in cattle beginning in the mid 1980s in Great Britain. Homer, who most likely has the sporadic form of the disease, definitely does not have the infectious form.
They also learned that Prusiner's discovery that an abnormally shaped protein can cause disease has galvanized scientists' understanding of more common neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS, which are now known to be diseases of misshapen or misprocessed proteins.
It is possible that CJD will be the first neurodegenerative disease to be conquered, says one of Homer's physicians, Bruce Miller, MD, director of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, and that the cure will catalyze drug strategies against these other diseases.
It is a fight that will require the ongoing rapid translation of discoveries made in the lab to the patient bedside, says Homer's primary physician, Michael Geschwind, MD, PhD, recruited from Johns Hopkins University in 2000.
It is a fight that Homer is determined to help win.
Related Links:
Fight for Mike: Help Mike Homer Fight Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)UCSF Foundation Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) Frequently Asked Questions
UCSF Foundation The Fight for Mike
Boomtown Blog, All Things Digital, June 15, 2007 Two Old Drugs May Help Fight Prion Diseases
UCSF Today, August 14, 2001