Hi to all,
If you test positive for MRTCs, they can make vaccine from your blood. Some patient's cells grow much faster than others. I have very fast growing cells. One of the reasons that my study has taken so long to complete was the difficulty in finding patients that could produce the 90 million cells necessary for each injection in the high-dose group.
I saw a chart or a graph of the amount of MRTCs obtained from a bag of blood. It is a very small number from which they must grow an ample supply of cells to make five 40-million dose injections. There are only 1 or 2 MRTCs per 1 million T-cells.
There was one person in my study who had difficulty producing enough cells for the mid-dose. I assume the comment about whether or not Opexa would be able to make vaccine from a particular patient's blood is relative to the growth rate of the cells. If it took a year to expand the cells out to the necessary amount for the vaccine, that would probably exclude the person from being in the study. It would not mean that the company could not make vaccine from the blood given a sufficient amount of time.
I had blood drawn on 12/26/06 for my next series of injections. I was told that it would be about 8 weeks before the vaccine would be ready. A 6-week turn around would be very fast. Most vaccine productions will take 8 to 12 weeks. Even though they told me 8 weeks, I assume it will be 10 weeks before I am back in Houston.
Somewhere a new member who is in the study did an excellent analysis of how MRTCs are found. The data he used was from my original study and since then the company has increased the number of peptides used from 6 to almost 100. They now have the new and improved vaccine. I have updated his analysis with the new information.
The Tovaxin protocol uses an assay to detect myelin reactive T cells (MRTCs) from approximately 100 different peptide fragments over 3 of the major myelin proteins to identify an individual’s MRTC set. The initial screening determines if an individual has circulating MRTC's that react with these myelin peptide fragments (called epitopes). A negative result means that MRTC's could not be detected by the assay. The inability of the test to detect MRTCs may mean that an individual does not have adequate levels of MRTCs to be detected, that interfering substances may have been administered to the individual (such as steroids local and systemic) thereby rendering the MRTCs incapable of being detected in the assay.
Both people with MS and healthy subjects make MRTC's. In people without MS the immune system realizes that those cells are "self reactive" and they are not allowed to expand. In people with MS at certain times and for as yet unknown reasons, these MRTC's are allowed to expand. This often results in a flare-up that may result in a relapse.
This is a link to how your EDSS is determined.
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/expandedd ... scale.html I have always said that the EDSS is a terrible way to measure MS disability. I have a staggered gait and a noticeable tremor. Many people with and EDSS of 3.0 may have no noticeable signs of MS to the casual observer.
According to Wikipedia the phrase "In like Flynn" refers to Errol Flynn's reputation as a womanizer.
Matter of fact, I'm afraid that it would go up if I had an even more thorough test. (Such as a day's worth of neuro-psych tests or something...).
