ishishah

Thank you! Long way to go, but the ride is fun.

Thank you for that advice. I will work on that.

Hi! Pasteurization is not known to impact the structure or function of human milk oligosaccharides. But there are certain heat labile molecules that are impacted by it, and raw milk may retain those.

But there is a whole another story with raw milk and pathogenesis. If interested, check this article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32591006/

Great question: The goal is to dramatically slow down the process of resistance by choice of molecules that are rapid in activity, and creative compositions.

Milk, as a whole will remain to be very effective, like it has been during the millions of years of mammalian evolution. The entire constellation of molecules present in milk (and still many unknowns) will allow for continued functionality (with many exclusive and redundant roles).

That spelling error you pointed out..argh!!! But thanks.

:-) Thanks!

Thanks! And I hear you, and recurrent & the secondary infections and the cyclic nature of it all are terrifying, to say the least, and the truth is also that in many cases, the recurrence is due to resistant bugs, that are just not eliminated by current care of Abx. Not to mention, some Abx when systemically administered, lead to major alterations in the gut microbiome as well. All in all, its not a good situation. I'm sorry to hear about your and your wife's infections, and hope we can contribute to reducing that burden somewhat for so many people.

Thank you! Yes, absolutely. Some of our candidate peptides impact bacteria across the spectrum and we are in the process of evaluating effects on viruses, specifically because the vaginal infections predispose patients to other secondary viral infections, and increased rates of HIV acquisition. In terms of benefits over other emerging therapies, we are focused on the safety aspect to the host and importantly, selectivity (differentiation between pathogenic and commensal bacteria), so that return to homeostasis is fast(er). Btw, I'm a fan of phages. But per our particular application, we belive it is best to move a bit away from "precision" as vaginosis and the umbrella of secondary infections are polymicrobial to a great extent.

Amen to that. Restoration of the gut microbiome is key to life-long health, starting with infancy, where colonization by the "right" beneficial bacteria is really important.

Infact, milk does a remarkable job with that. One example: diverse group of complex oligosaccharides present in milk and reaching the colon intact serve as food for the beneficial bacteria, allowing them to dominate the infant gut and present a wide array of benefits.

Yep. For us, production and scaling is/will continue to be COMPLETELY independent of donor milk.

Thank you for your comment. We are evaluating the best path forward based on safety dossier requirements for topical applications. Longer term, we envision that the product should be a prescription based.

Re your comment about founders' experience, we are four founders (three full time Professors, and a senior scientist), with academic and translational portfolio.

Thanks for your question. Our initial analysis was from a small batch of milk, separation from other components, and evaluating function. Subsequently, we have been getting them synthetically made, determining dose and therapeutic index, to scale, and without the need for milk from an animal source.

Thanks! Yes, I imagine that any industry with higher requirement of resources and de-risking of technology walk hand in hand with challenges. Getting off the ground challenge #1 is When?, #2 Funds? and #3 Determining precise timing to get to market?

Thank you! We are all excited.

:-)