GeneThera Inc. (GTHR)

[SAE]

Why I am invested in Genethera Inc...Stockinvestor

THE PROBLEM Diseases of terrestrial, avian and aquatic life animals influence a number of economic and global security issues; food for an increasing world population, access to international trade, species conservation and protection of those endangered, and economic growth in developing and re-organizing nations. Because many animal disease agents are zoonotic (transmissible between humans and animals, causing infection in both species), their management and prevention are crucial to improving public health on a global scale. Moreover, animal diseases raise arms control concerns through the potential use of animal pathogens in bio-terrorism and economic espionage.



THE SOLUTION GeneThera is an international biotechnology company, dedicated since 1998 to improving food safety by applying the latest molecular technologies to eradicate "cross over" diseases such as Johne's Disease, Mad Cow Disease, Chronic Wasting Disease, and E.coli. The company focuses on developing molecular diagnostic tests, therapeutics, and vaccines in the belief that better technologies and methodology need to be implemented to help control emerging diseases in animals and in humans, if not these diseases in animals will likely continue to cause serious and growing problems in terms of economics, human health and biodiversity.



MARKET DRIVERS Johne's disease (JD) results from infection with bacteria called Mycobacterium paratuberculosis. This organism grows very slowly, causes a gradually worsening disease condition, and is highly resistant to the infected animal's immune defenses. Therefore, infected animals harbor the organism for years before they test positive or develop disease signs.

Industry Pains:

• Reduction in milk production to 25%+.
• High culling rate which increases costs.
• JD affects trade and hinders exports.
• Studies are discovering a link between JD and Crohn’s disease.
• Reduction in quality wool production in sheep.

• Paratuburculosis casue 40% in economic damages to Italian farmers.

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Johne's Disease targets all ruminates. Johne's Disease (JD) is a worldwide problem of domestic and wild animals and is also a potential public health concern. A chronic granulomatous inflammatory intestinal disease, JD results from infection with Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (Map). A German veterinarian first described the disease in a dairy cow in 1865. His name is used as the common name for the disease; it is sometimes referred to as paratuberculosis.

JD is most often seen in ruminants, hoofed animals that chew their cud and have a 3-4 chambered stomach. Some of the more common ruminants are cattle, sheep, goats, deer, antelope and bison. JD has been reported in all these animals but is now recognized to be a serious economic and animal health problem in domesticated ruminants, primarily dairy and beef cattle, sheep and goats. The growing recognition of Map infection in wildlife species is also of great concern since it may limit opportunities to control or eradicate JD from domesticated animals.

JD occurs worldwide. According to the Johne's Information Center, it is estimated that 7.8% of the beef herds and 30% to 70% of the dairy herds in the U.S. are infected with Map. Infection rates in cattle in other countries are generally similar or larger. The disease has been reported in sheep, goats, elk, deer, bison, llamas and wild ruminants in zoos, but accurate estimates of the number of infected animals are not available. A recent report on JD from the National Research Council (NAS) of the US National Academies of Sciences concluded that JD is a significant animal-health problem whose study and control deserves high priority from the USDA and other national and state agencies. It was recognized that the problems associated with JD stem from:
• Difficulties in diagnosis because of an unusually long incubation period and a lack of specific and sensitive diagnostic tests for detecting early infections.
• Vaccines have been ineffective in treating JD.
• An absence of general awareness of the disease and its true economic and animal-health consequences.

Although first described over a century ago, JD is now recognized to be a serious economic and animal health problem throughout the world.

Johne’s Facts:
• Affects small intestine in ruminants
• Highest at risk animals are young calves or pre-born.
• Bacterium can survive in contaminated soil for over 1 year.
• Spread in herds can occur by fecal contamination, colostrum, milk, and transplacental.
• Calves can become infected by suckling on “dirty” teat
• For every one “clinical stage” in a herd there are 15-20 silently infected plus an additional 6-8 carriers.

Stages I: Silent, subclinical, non-detectable infection, typically this stage occurs in all calves, heifers, and young stock less than two years of age and many adult animals exposed to small doses of disease-causing organism. Infected animals at this early stage are rarely detected with currently available diagnostic tests, including fecal culture or serologic tests (ELISA). This stage progresses slowly over many months or years to stage II.

Stage II: Subclinical infection, typically this stage occurs in older heifers or adults. Animals at this stage appear healthy but are shedding adequate numbers of MAP organisms in their manure to be detected on fecal culture. Blood tests will detect some, but not all animals at this stage. Blood test (ELISA) positive animals should be confirmed positive by fecal culture.

Stage III: Clinical JD, any animal with advanced infection, the onset which is often associated with a period of stress, such as recent calving. Cattle at this stage have intermittent, watery pea-soup manure. Animals lose weight and gradually drop in milk production but continue to have a good appetite. Some animals appear to recover but often relapse in the next stress period. Most of these animals are shedding billions of organisms and are positive on culture. Most are positive on serologic tests (ELISA & AGID). Clinical signs often last several weeks to months before the animals are sent to slaughter in a thin, emaciated condition.
In the final and terminal aspects of stage III of the fatal disease, animals become emaciated with fluid diarrhea and develop “bottle jaw”. The carcass may not pass meat inspection for human consumption in the later phases of stage III.
Industry Drivers.

There are multiple industry drivers that take place in the JD market. These encompass both government, economic, and health:
• Reduction in milk production up 25%+.
• Increased costs to feed infected animals to produce.
• Reduction of quality wool in the sheep industry.
• Paratuberculosis in cows causes the largest economic damages (40%) for Italian dairy farms.
• High culling rate which increases costs.
• JD affects trade and hinders exports.
• Increased government regulations.
• Increased veterinarian costs.
• Studies are discovering a link between JD and Crohn’s disease.


Chronic Wasting Disease mainly targets elk and deer. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a transmissible neurological disease of deer and elk that produces small lesions in brains of infected animals. It is characterized by loss of body condition, behavioral abnormalities and death. CWD is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), and is similar to mad cow disease in cattle and scrapie in sheep.
Infectious agents of CWD are neither bacteria nor viruses, but are hypothesized to be prions. Prions are infectious proteins without associated nucleic acids.

Mad Cow Disease targets cattle. Mad cow disease is an incurable, fatal brain disease that affects cattle and possibly some other animals, such as goats and sheep. The medical name for mad cow disease is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (pronounced: bo-vine spun-jih-form en-seh-fah-la-puh-thee), or BSE for short. It's called mad cow disease because it affects a cow's nervous system, causing a cow to act strangely and lose control of its ability to do normal things, such as walk.

Only certain animals can get BSE, people don't actually get mad cow disease. However, experts have found a link between BSE and a rare brain condition that affects people, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Researchers believe that people who eat beef from cows that have BSE are at risk of developing a form of CJD.

Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease targets people. Those who eat BSE–contaminated meat are at an extremely high risk to develop CJD, also known in its variant form as vCJD.

The cause of the TSE family of diseases is neither a bacterium or a virus. It is believed to be a prion—an abnormal form of cellular prion proteins that exist in the brain—that leads to brain damage and the characteristic symptoms of the disease. Prion diseases are transmissible by eating the meat of an affected animal. They are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal, but CJD can have an incubation period of up to 30 years.

Turberculosis targets both animals and people. Tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious disease of both animals and humans. It is caused by three specific types of bacteria that are part of the Mycobacterium group: Mycobacterium bovis, M. avium, and M. tuberculosis.

Bovine TB, caused by M. bovis, can be transmitted from livestock to humans and other animals. No other TB organism has as great a host range as bovine TB, which can infect all warm blooded vertebrates. M. avium can affect all species of birds, as well as hogs and cattle. M. tuberculosis primarily affects humans but can also be transmitted to hogs, cattle, and dogs.

Bovine TB has affected animal and human health since antiquity. Once the most prevalent infectious disease of cattle and swine in the United States, bovine TB caused more losses among U.S. farm animals in the early part of this century than all other infectious diseases combined...[More links to research at site]

http://www.genethera.net/pages/forthepublic.htm