I have received tons of communications from members of this community inquiring as to the status of Ichor's C60 research. I wanted to post a brief update for the community as to our current efforts and future directions.
Ichor has formed an affiliate subsidiary called Antoxerene (see www.antoxerene.com), which is the small molecule drug discovery and development arm of the Ichor family. Antoxerene has just closed an oversubscribed $1.5M seed round. It will engage in traditional drug discovery around the p53/FOXO4 and p53/MDM2 pathways. All of our C60 research will also be conducted through this entity.
Most of our C60 related work for the past several months has been focused on bringing online more robust analytical techniques. The chemical properties of C60 make it challenging to study minor disturbances in the cage structure, such as oxidation states. Given the overwhelming number of possible degradation intermediates and breakdown products, tracking these components is a daunting challenge we are only just starting to dive into.
As many of you know, we have previously posted reports stating our concern about the safety of vendor supplied C60. These concerns are based on inconsistencies between label claims (i.e. concentration) and our intramural measurements, our own observations that C60oo is highly reactive when light exposed, and that light exposed C60oo either had no effect or was acutely toxic. Further, to date not a single vendor has been able to provide quality control information supporting their label claims, though several were kind enough to send us back our own data that we posted on these forums.
Our current interest is in determining whether the profound positive health effects published by Baati et al are true, particularly in light of duplicate images in the histopathology and other sources of contention in the paper, and non-encouraging results observed in my laboratory.
We have developed stable manufacturing processes in house so we can quality control the supply of C60oo we are using for our experiments. This has been a surprisingly non-trivial undertaking, but improperly characterized C60oo or vendor supplied C60oo has been a source of variance that made it difficult to accurately answer questions about the Baati claims. This is adequately online now.
We have developed a theoretical framework that could reconcile the observed toxic effects of light-exposed C60oo with the claimed positive effects of pristine C60oo. We are now conducting experimental work to support or refute our proposed mechanism of action. If correct, we expect to have clear mechanistic data that fully explains these divergent observations within a few months, and clear the path for a legitimate translational effort around C60.
Additionally -- what we all care about -- is whether or not the lifespan effects of C60oo reported by Baati are real. To this end, we have started a small lifespan study (initiated May, 2017) using freshly prepared, carefully quality controlled C60oo. Our animal model is a C57BL/6 BALBc F1 cross. Animals (n=10/group) are being treated with olive oil or C60oo in exact accordance with the Baati dosing schedule, starting at age 24 months. Although we typically prefer to run lifespan studies with n=35 or greater, we should achieve statistical significance with this group size if the lifespan effect is true. We have also begun building relevant IP around the space so that we can move forward with an FDA compliant translational pathway if positive results are observed.
I will share interim results when one of the two groups (control or treatment) reach 50% mortality. We expect this to occur sometime around January 2018.
