>WTF are you doing? Protein replacement therapy for retinitis pigmentosa type 25 and also other retinal injuries. EYS is a protein that gets secreted by the retina to protect it from damage. It also belongs to a class of proteins that have some really crazy tissue regeneration properties. [1] We are going to grow it in cell cultures and then inject it, a lot like how diabetics get insulin injections.
>What is your plan? We are going to start by testing in zebrafish. Some fluorescent tagged EYS is going to get injected into their eye and then we will see if it goes to the right place (retinal outer segment). If all goes well, we then modify some zebrafish so that they are missing EYS, and track the visual decline of treated vs. untreated fish. Visual function is measured by wrapping the fish in a wire electrode, showing them flashes of light, and then recording the electrical signals.
Had time to work a little bit more on the wiki. Some family members want to donate to the project as well. Right now I really, really need to set aside enough time to finish working on the whitepaper before this Tuesday.
Gabriel Hernandez
They aren't currently, but that's a really good idea. My progress on this has really slowed down this week because of being busy with outside stuff, but I'll work on adding that.
>EYS wide open Damn, I should have used that.
>ITT Veeky Forums cures blindness
Jackson Phillips
>No, just extremely motivated.
From my experience in Dwarf Fortress I can tell you that there's a very thin line between extreme motivation and insanity.
Christopher Nelson
So you can't change the name of the project on github?
Also, is the list of tasks in the project wiki completed as in thre won't be any new tasks added?
Joseph Edwards
>Damn, I should have used that. change it now or make a new one name is important
Colton Walker
The required resolution to identify said line is negligible. We can isolate any 'wave' but the sectional monoclusters left are relative and still nearest-k neighbors.
Methmetically speaking, ya gotta be both if you want a chance of either.
Jack Richardson
How are you going to measure the electric signals in the zebrafish eyes?
Zachary Martin
>a lot like how diabetics get insulin injections. the hell is this? you realize insulin isn't injected into the pancreas, right?
Brayden Parker
He probably just meant regular injections.
Aaron Turner
Have you sent the project link to anons, who gave you their emails in the previous thread? Some of them might not have seen this one.
Kayden Howard
I'm already connected to it, kept my eyes open 'cause i'm interested in the project.
We should keep this thread going as a sort of general to garner support from other Veeky Forums-anons as it would help get more volunteers and raise awareness within Veeky Forums.
I'm debating looking at Veeky Forums-fags for the marketing side of things but those homos can't even stock market right so i'm not too sure about them...
Already doing my research and seeing where i can help.
Nicholas Walker
It looks like I should be able to rename it.
I'm still working on that list and it's by no means finished. Were you looking for a specific type of work?
Depending on how tight finances are, it could be as simple as hooking the electrodes up to a DAQ. Otherwise I can do it by hooking up an amplifier to a microntroller and using the onboard AD converters. The signal is on the order of microvolts though.
See . EYS most likely has a fairly long half life, so injections every 6-18 months should make RP25 curable. For healing damage caused by other injuries like retinal vein occlusions, probably one or two injections total should be enough.
Not yet, but I linked to this thread in the previous one.
I see some econ majors posting on Veeky Forums from time to time. I think if we can make the case that the market exists and it will be profitable to produce this drug, then investors should hopefully come to us. I really appreciate the help!
Charles Gomez
if investors hop on board that would be excellent, especially if we can get this past FDA (which wont be hard, honestly you can get anything past them just short of nuclear bombs) and turn a reasonable profit, we can make millions. Speaking of, greed will come quick and the anons who helped (and those claiming to have helped) will be demanding some kind of compensation, so we will need to add to the Veeky Forums oriented tasks the job of figuring out who gets payed what if we decide to go down that road.
Cameron Rodriguez
Is that based on experience? It seems like the FDA can be pretty stringent, albeit less so for protein replacement therapies and rare diseases. Also one option might be to place all the proceeds in a nonprofit foundation so we don't have to squabble over who gets what. Though that would be years down the road, so we shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves
Lincoln Carter
>Also one option might be to place all the proceeds in a nonprofit foundation how does this work? I've never understood non-profit.
Also, i'm still working on this for free because its a great project and i want you to succed, but i don't think i'm the first man who wouldn't mind some moola if it were available. Maybe i'm just being greedy, nonetheless i'm going to look into those tasks and see where and if i can help.
Godspeed OP.
Angel Myers
Bump
Grayson Long
All the best luck OP, you are a true inspiration.
Kevin Anderson
How are you going to deal with this project being associated with Veeky Forums? People who don't browse the site usually think that all boards here are like /b/ or / pol/. This could hinder the project in early stages, though if you make it past that no one's gonna care.
Jayden Lopez
>implying OP would say the project started on Veeky Forums its out little secrit user :)
Charles Powell
Let's hope it remains that way.
Bentley Butler
all boards are like /b/ and /pol/. Every other thread is /pol/-tier (((GR))) hate or flat-earth shit.
Alexander Phillips
True, but some boards are more /pol/ like than others. Guess we should come up with a /pol/ness coefficient for each board.
Andrew Collins
true. I only go on Veeky Forums and Veeky Forums which both have a solid amount of /pol/ threads, but there is at least discourse. I mean I hate black people, but /pol/ is p annoying
Sebastian Brooks
I am beginning to have second thoughts about posting this as a Veeky Forums-centric project.
I really want to keep money and politics totally out of this. If it would make everyone happy, I will literally withdraw any money this drug makes and livestream me burning it in a huge bonfire. I only care about making this treatment work, and I can't afford to let anything get in the way of that. I watched what happened with the Tox project on /g/ and I don't intend to repeat their mistakes. That was a very promising piece of software that got destroyed by mentally ill concern trolls.
I think what I will do going forward is continue to work on this privately and post occasional updates as things progress.
Lucas Campbell
It is possible to keep politics out of this since your project is unrelated to them, if we can make it past the early stages without a disaster everything will be fine
Christopher Reyes
The previous posts do bring up some valid problems that might arise when the project gets bigger. For now the biggest danger is that people might dismiss the project on the grounds that it's from Veeky Forums so we should hide our involvement as much as possible.
The money issue is not really an issue, though. Just say that the goal is a working cure, not profit (basically what you just posted)
Leo Cooper
Tox actually got really far before the concern trolls killed it. It was a secure messaging app like Telegram, but before Telegram existed. They got quite a bit of tech news coverage and were even an open source project that was sponsored by Google at one point. But then this one troll developed a pathological obsession with the dev team and launched this huge organized FUD campaign against the project, as well as doxxing the devs and harassing them in real life, culminating in getting one of them fired from his job. This was all because they had tried to do something successful on Veeky Forums and that made the troll jealous.
If I can find a legal way to do it, I will actually burn the money. I'm not even joking
Logan Brooks
Interesting, I googled info about Tox and all I found was a scandal that someone misused the project funds since you'll be the only one in charge of the crowdfunding campaign I figured that this won't be an issue.
For now you're successfully avoiding doxxing by using a throwaway github account, the only danger to you at the moment is those anons that you emailed (I'm one of them, but don't worry, will send you an email later). Anyway, doxxing will become an issue once the crowdfunding campaign is online so we should think of a way to circumvent that.
Oliver Thomas
You know what? I am just going to sit here and follow you. This might actually be crazy enough to work. Also want to read all the "le 200 pound Hacker Veeky Forums cures blindess" articles the MSM would be forced to write.
The FDA is slow as shit, user. Opening a case costs millions. Won't get approved for years.
Better idea: tell me how zebrafish study goes. I have human subjects ready to go. Skip approval bullshit and prove it works on people first. Open source/diy instructions in braile. Change the world and fuck the money. Don't become a startupfag.
Christopher Morales
You're probably not serious, but I'l bite:
What kind of human subjects? Hobos from the streed probably would not suffice, though it's up to OP to decide.
Even if we choose to skip FDA approval we still need a proof of concept so zebrafish or other animal trials are a must. Also this project is already open source you can do some of the open tasks yourself if you want (github.com/EyesOpenCure/EyesOpenProject/wiki/List-of-Open-and-Ongoing-Tasks). Doing them will make OP less reliant on crowdfunding.
Michael Campbell
Lol. Not hobos. Yes, animal tests first, then I have patients that fit this risk profile. I'll keep an eye on progress.
Carter Anderson
seems nice but I only know a bit of physics, if I eventually learn something about biology I will help with some ideas
Juan Turner
Well first we need to get to those animal tests anyway so this topic will come up later if at all (maybie FDA approval will prove easier to get )
Easton Russell
Is that a prototypeproject banner? Pretty good, but the text is a bit mess so still needs improvement.
Zachary Turner
Here is a fixed version. Was done in Adobe illustrator, would glady share the .ai .svg or whatever if anyone wants it.
If this succeeds the benefits would go far beyond confused media.
Best of luck OP.
Charles Thomas
>sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170606095033.htm I'll sign up to be a test subject. If you want my contact, just let me know. I, too, am a scientist in need of this therapy, and I will sign a waiver freeing you of any responsibility for my decision to test it on myself.
Levi Evans
how common is the condiion that would be cured anyways. What portion of blindness cases are we talking here?
Ian Sanders
Mate, we might actually be more than a shitposting website for once.
Bentley Sullivan
Grant us eyes, grant us eyes. Plant eyes on our brains, to cleanse our beastly idiocy.
Noah Reed
Fairly rare, RP in general seems to affect 1 in 4000 persons. Not too certain on RP25 specifically however.
Jonathan Lopez
I’m not surprised. Wasn’t there a guy that had a theoretical cheap cure for cancer I saw him post here a year or so ago by using DNP and burning out the mitochondrial membrane. Anyone have the link?
Daniel Roberts
>some autistic retard out of jealousy fucked up a pretty good idea raidforums.com/hoa/ is he loved user? i'm pretty sure /g/ grew such a hate-boner for the faggot that they went ahead and got revenge somehow? Either way, autism speaks, so just safety-wrap in autism-proof tinfoil OP. Definitely wise to move this off of Veeky Forums, and #1 do NOT give your email to any more anons, have them contact you indirectly through the github, and make sure that that is disconnected from any accounts you use, use a new password and everything else too. As for all other anons involved in the project, do likewise.
And OP, money may become an issue in the future because jealous is human nature. Burning the money would only make those interested in it even angrier because you took what they saw as their share and destroyed it. The best way to proceed in regards to human greed when it comes is to figure out some agreement based on contribution, you can keep majority of proceeds because you came up with the idea and are doing the majority of the grunt-work.
Another option is to make the thing free, but then that opens the flood-gate for people to steal your working prototype and profit off of it themselves, and believe me when i say people WILL find a way to make a profit off this.
I fear such things are ahead, let us pray that we dodge those bullets when they come...
>it was mismanagement of funds oh, then this won't really be a problem so long as OP or a biz-user figures out how to spend for the project.
Also Doxxing is easily avoidable, just make throw-away accounts, keep everything secrit and private, and never establish connections to friends, family, or your personal account in any way. Also, when the trolls come we can just use misdirection and distractions and false leads to keep them off our ass, For instance OP, i know you attend Univeristy of Ottowa and your name is Stephane Aris-Brosou.
The motif should be an eye opening, just barely open, looking just barely at the centre of the image, slightly off to the right. Even a photograph of a normal persons eye is good enough for this project, but damn that logo of yours is ugly.
Pic related, KISS, we want something thats catchy and grabs the audiences attention, provocative but not offensive, to really make them think. Get the point forward clear and simple, i tried a slogan but its a bit weak. Other than that fugly eye of yours your promotional content is acually really good.
Went ahead and forked the github in case something happens to it and to keep a copy so i can sate the autistic forces that make me ctrl+s my word documents at least 15 times in a row.
Christian Ortiz
Or he could use throwaway email accounts as well.
Benjamin Bell
A combination of your image and his slogan could be an initial project banner.
Jaxson Adams
>but damn that logo of yours is ugly Never said that I am actually good at that. That said, I agree, just wanted to do one.
Made a ton of progress on the whitepaper, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to finish in time for tomorrow. I should have it typeset in LaTeX by the end of the week though, which will make showing this project to researchers and investors much easier.
Brandon Moore
Do you have any background in molecular biology?
Gabriel Diaz
If I recall correctly, irungentoo didn't even steal the funds. He bought himself a laptop to write code on, but then the trolls latched onto that, contacted a bunch of media outlets, and turned it into this huge FUD campaign. The Tox Foundation had no other choice but to disavow him because of the firestorm. It was some real-next-level trolling, and honestly I think state actors may have been involved since this was around the time of the Snowden leaks.Thanks anons!
I'm trying to get the whitepaper done this week, and then I hope to have the detailed plan vetted by experts in the next two weeks. Next, about a month of crowdfunding, and another two weeks after that until the first supplies arrive. Pharmokinetic tests will probably start mid-May (hopefully sooner), immediately followed by a proof of concept study in modified zebrafish that concludes in early July. If all goes well then I spend another month securing venture capital funding and hopefully get to hire some of you guys full time.
With proper funding, I'm going to redo the zebrafish experiment, but with better methodology so that it will be admissable as an FDA preclinical trial. For protein replacement the FDA wants two separate three month animal trials, so I'm going to try to run both concurrently to save time. The second trial will probably be in rabbits to determine dosing. Animal trials should be done some time in December, and the review of the Investigational New Drug Application will probably take another month for them to review.
Phase 1 clinical trials can hopefully begin in February or March 2019. If we can get the FDA to fast track the approval process on the basis of this being a treatment for a rare and serious disease, it could potentially be on the open market by Q3 2020.
Tyler Murphy
Do you have a mail address? I'd like to talk to you in private.
The FDA special provisions that make it easy to create treatments for rare diseases, and protein replacement therapies are really easy to get approved on top of that. We can actually get the FDA to pay us $15mil a year to finance clinical trials, and apply for fast track approval that would get it on the market in 1.5 years.
That being said, where are you located? I'm not sure how much I can do without getting arrested, but I would like to help once I know that this treatment isn't dangerous.
What sort of retinal disease do you have? Again, I need to at the very least make sure this is safe first.
The initial therapeutic target is RP25, which will make getting it through the FDA easiest because then it will qualify as an orphan drug. Depending on how effective EYS is at regenerating retinal tissue, it may be able to repair damage from injuries like retinal vein occlusions and infections. Possibly age-related macular degeneration too, but really it's anyone's guess at this point because nobody has tried this yet.
I've been following your posts op keep up the good work, and remember that no important thing was achieved without setbacks so don't loose your motivation in case something does happen.
Wyatt Rodriguez
Having a dedicated project email is a good choice.
Also, what do you think about the project banner ideas thrown around by a couple of anons in this thread?
Matthew Green
>sadanimegirl.jpg its ok user, you tried
Daniel Bell
If you do make money, don't burn it. Throw it all into other research projects, your own or others.
Oliver Cook
This deadline may be a little too optimistic, but still - let's go for it.
Parker Morris
So anons, someone from a certain news outlet that you've probably heard of saw this thread and contacted me about doing a story. I don't want to jeopardize the project by turning this into some kind of attentionwhore thing about me, so I haven't responded yet. However at the same time, media attention could be really useful for securing funding.
What should I do?
Gavin Adams
I agree that it's ambitious, but we should aim for early delivery in order to speed things along as much as possible.
Thanks user. I'm expecting issues to come up, but I'm going to keep working on this as long as I can.
It's progress, though I think more color might be good. If we can figure out a coordinated color scheme I can help make a website with matching colors.
I have a lot of other projects that I would like to put the proceeds towards, but given the choice between having this project die in controversy and throwing the money away, I would rather throw the money away. I probably can't burn the money directly, but I could buy some priceless painting and burn that instead. Or I could put it all in a dufflebag and hand it to a random homeless person. At least then it would be doing some good.
Ethan Hill
Tell him you will speak anonymously about it to him and just about the project itself, for now. Also tell him that you don`t want to jeopardize it by turning this into some kind of attentionwhoreing. Also (just to make sure that this is clear) tell him that you aren`t up for (pre-clinical trial) human experiments, like some people suggested ITT.
make sure they DO NOT do the following: >reveal your true identity >mention human trials or anything that could garner too much controversy
the goal with this opportunity should be to let the public know about the goal to cure sight and nothing more. Make it explicitly clear that this is for eyes only, does not give people immortality, doesn't make designer babies, etc. Its more like a genetic band-aid than anything.
Also you should probably use this service for the funding, it shows how the funds plan on being used and so on: experiment.com/
with all this in mind go for it, publicity is great for getting financial or other support. Make sure to do what says, just let them know you don't want this to spoil the project.
Godspeed user.
Jacob Evans
What the anons above me said if the news site is reputable and doesn't publish clickbait
Levi Bennett
I'm seeing the thread for the first time, but I gotta say this is great work you're doing OP.
Thomas Flores
Maybe we should go for the visible light spectrum motif for the banner? Just make sure that the colors aren't too bright and flamboyant.
Bentley Fisher
I think using the money for other projects (if there is any real amount of money left anyway) is fine as long as you say so clearly from the start. Anything else is a lose for all of us.
Also, before anyone flames me again, I know that these are shit, but I like making them.
Well, the idea for using the visible light spectrum as a coloring theme is quite nice. Maybe someone with better artistic skills will improve these.
Parker Watson
Day 27:
A lot happened today. Someone donated pic related, which is a really nice magnification lamp and should be very useful for injecting and wiring fish. I'm going to start putting together a work area this weekend.
Also, I met with that ophthalmology researcher and he agreed to review the whitepaper once it's finished. Also he sounded open to the idea of letting me use some of his facilities.
I responded to the journalist who contacted me yesterday too.
Email sent. I'm going to try to stay anonymous for at least this first article.
Thanks user!
I like the idea of the the color spectrum motif! What do you guys think about a circular black pupil looking at the viewer, surrounded by a rainbow colored iris, and an off-white sclera? It might look pretty good as a minimalist logo without any black border lines.
We'll see what everyone's consensus is and then I'll end up doing that. Giving it to charity would probably be best, but ot wouldn't send as much of a message as setting it on fire.
Noah Bailey
Godspeed user, may good fortune bless this project.
Here's my quick attempt at a minimalistic prototype project logo. It's not that good since I couldn't get a proper non-elliptical eye shape and the rainbow patttern should be radial, imo. If someone with more design experience could improve it, that would be great as this is literally my 4th time doing graphic design.
I went ahead and left an advertisement in my university library.
Plan on getting more slips of paper and putting them in biology, business, etc books strategically so that 4th yr students working on their thesis runs into it.
When the sorta-final design of the logo is done - I'll make a printable version of that, with the logo, link, QR code and a short description like :"OpenEYS (Eyes Open) - open source protein replacement therapy project aiming to cure blindness"
Caleb Hughes
It's not exactly curing blindness, but curing a genetic disease that happens to cause it so maybe it should say something like >OpenEYS (Eyes Open) - open source protein replacement therapy project aiming to eliminate a blindness-causing genetic disease.
Ethan Davis
Day 28:
Spent a good chunk of the day responding to interview questions. Transcript: pastebin.com/9nNdA0Le
Top priority right now is finishing the whitepaper and wiki.
John Bennett
Good to see this project getting some publicity. Will you link the article once it's written?
Also, as someone on github already mentioned, the whitepaper link in the wiki's homepage just redirects to the homepage instead of the whitepaper.
Andrew Roberts
Thanks user!
I really like that last one! If we could get the colors to vary perpendicularly to how they currently are, so that they resemble the striations in the human iris, then I think that logo would be perfect. We will also want to set the background to be the alpha channel so that it's just a floating eye.
Nanoparticles seem interesting, but it sort of seems like they might be intended for a different class of drugs than what we're attempting. I may be wrong, but it mainly seems like they exist to keep small molecule drugs from diffusing away too quickly. EYS is already huge, so I'm not sure how much benefit they would be. It's definitely worth looking into some more though.
That's another good one. We should put it to a strawpoll.
There's plenty of work to go around! I'll update the list of tasks with some more content.
Probably this weekend on Vice. It's originally for the French edition though, so I'm not sure if it's going to get republished in English.
That's a really good idea! Please consider submitting the flyers to the git repository when you end up making them.
Also I really need to finish the wiki ASAP before a bunch of people start looking at it.
It remains to be seen whether EYS will have all of the same regenerative properties of agrin/perlecan, but the possibility is there for it to treat other injuries.
Absolutely! Also that link is just a placeholder because I'm still drafting the whitepaper and it's not really in a state for people to look at yet. I'm aiming to have it done by tomorrow night.
Benjamin Stewart
Will you have the wiki done by tomorrow as well?
Cooper Martin
>I really like that last one! If we could get the colors to vary perpendicularly to how they currently are, so that they resemble the striations in the human iris, then I think that logo would be perfect. We will also want to set the background to be the alpha channel so that it's just a floating eye. Ay boss.
