IMO all focus should include reacquiring the rights to 5-HMF, this asset was illegally disposed of, the "inventors" of 5-HMF, VCU (the people who the indigenous knowledge was given to by Pandy) are developing it with Ghana right now, Martin Safo one of the "inventors" from VCU is a Director of the Ghana BioMedical Convention, below is a plenary from the Ghana Biomedical Convention 2008
Plenary
[7] 5-Hydroxymethyl-2-furfural: A Potent Antisickling Agent In Vivo and In Vitro
Safo MK,1 Abdulmalik O,2 Danso-Danquah R,1 Asakura T,2 Abraham DJ.1
1Institute for Structural Biology and Drug Discovery, Virginia Commonwealth University,
Richmond, VA 23219; 2Division of Hematology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia,
Philadelphia, PA 19104. msafo@vcu.edu
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is one of the most prevalent hematologic genetic disorders in the
world that occurs as a result of a single mutation of ßGlu6 in hemoglobin (Hb) to ßVal6 in sickle
hemoglobin (HbS). The clinical condition is characterized by chronic hemolytic anemia, frequent
and severe painful crises and multi-system pathology that impact nearly every organ. Currently,
hydroxyurea is the only drug used for the treatment of SCD. Unfortunately, not all patients
respond to hydroxyurea and some patients experience adverse effects, thus there remains a
need for other modes of therapy. Since polymerization of deoxygenated HbS accounts for the
pathologic changes in SCD, one of the main strategy of therapy aims to prevent or reverse this
process. One such approach involves chemical modification of Hb to increase the more soluble
oxygenated HbS (increase the oxygen affinity of Hb) and/or to stereospecifically inhibit the
polymerization process by destabilizing HbS contact sites. However, one of the challenges to
finding such therapeutic Hb modifiers has been the lack of compounds which would specifically
bind with the high concentration of Hb without causing adverse effects. We recently discovered
5-hydroxymethyl-2-furfural (5-HMF), a naturally occurring compound to be a strong antisickling
agent. The in vitro studies showed that 5-HMF was able to pass through the red blood cell
(RBC) membranes and bind specifically with Hb, forming a Schiff-base adduct. This modification
of Hb increased the oxygen affinity of Hb and inhibited the polymerization process. Our in vivo
studies also demonstrated that 5-HMF had high bioavailability; a single oral dose of 100 mg/kg
5-HMF in transgenic sickle mice had a terminal half-life level of 1.5 hrs and resulted in 100%
modification of HbS. This single oral dose significantly prolonged the survival time of hypoxiaexposed
transgenic sickle mice from 15 min to the full experimental period of 60 min. The potent
anti-sickling effect, low-molecular weight, low toxicity, high specificity and high bioavailability
make 5-HMF an attractive potential candidate for the treatment of SCD. Further detailed studies
on the long-term toxicology and clinical trials of 5-HMF are currently on-going.
You have to understand, Niprisan is a prodrug of 5-HMF, i don't know how to make you understand this but it is important that you do.....when 5-HMF receives full approval and goes to market as things currently stand XeChem, its shareholders, its subsidiaries, Nigeria, etc... will all get squat, anyone can change the "patented" four plant herbal remedy, 5-HMF comes from hundreds if not thousands of sources, 5-HMF is was works for the treatment of sickle cell NOT Niprisan, Nicosan, Hemoxin.....also, think about this.....if you can effectively treat sickle cell disease with a product that has limitless bioavailabilty, you have pretty much found an immunization vehicle for Malaria.....am i getting through to you guys here? XeChem MUST reacquire the rights to 5-HMF, it is more important than anything else, period.
