Aethlon Medical Inc (AEMD)

[Truthteller]

News Release Issued: Apr 22, 2014 (8:01am EDT)

To view this release online and get more information about Aethlon Medical visit: http://aethlonmedical.investorroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=169
Aethlon Medical (AEMD) CEO Note: Cancer Therapy Publication References Aethlon Medical

SAN DIEGO, April 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Aethlon Medical, Inc. (OTCQB: AEMD), today released the following note authored by its Chairman and CEO, Jim Joyce.
Aethlon Hemopurifier

When we initiated our first exosome research program, the medical community generally viewed these particles as nothing more than cellular debris with no biological function. In contrast, we believed that exosomes, also known as microvesicles or extracellular vesicles, suppressed the immune system of cancer patients and that stage of cancer progression correlated directly with quantity of exosomes in circulation. We envisioned the possibility that a medical device could eliminate circulating exosomes and combine to improve the benefit of established cancer therapies without adding drug toxicity.

Today, I am pleased to inform you that a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and University of Oxford have published a review article that validates the original rationale of our exosome research and further reinforces our future plan to submit an investigational device exemption (IDE) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that requests permission to initiate Hemopurifier® studies in cancer patients.

The article entitled: "Extracellular Vesicles: Emerging Targets for Cancer Therapy" is published in the current issue of the journal "Trends in Molecular Medicine".

The article reviews recent discoveries that have increased the understanding of extracellular vesicles (EV's) role in tumor development and progression, including immune suppression, angiogenesis, and metastasis. On the basis of this understanding, EV's have emerged to be targets for anticancer therapy. The article then discusses novel therapeutic strategies to target EVs to prevent tumor growth and spread. In this regard, Aethlon Medical is the only organization referenced based on our extracorporeal device strategy to target the elimination of exosomes from circulation of cancer patients.
The authors presented the following knowledge of EV's role is cancer progression:

EV's suppress the immune response of cancer patients and also seem to display a multitude of actions that collectively function to suppress immune surveillance.
The number of circulating EV's in cancer patients seems to be higher than in healthy individuals and has been found to correlate with poorF prognosis.

EV's contribute to drug resistance during chemotherapy and strikingly, tumor-derived EV's seem capable of spreading drug resistance.
EVs transport deleterious proteins and RNAs that are known to contribute to cancer development and progression.
EV's promote angiogenesis, which allow tumors to create new blood vessels for survival.

A striking feature of tumor-derived EVs is their potential to facilitate formation of the pre-metastatic niche at distant organ sites in preparation for future tumor metastasis.
The abstract of the article can be found online at: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24703619

The authors acknowledged that their work was supported by funding from The University of Oxford John Fell OUP Research Fund (M.J.A.W.) and The National Institutes of Health - National Cancer Institute (NIH-NCI).
About Aethlon Medical, Inc.
LOGO