SUCCESS
Reached the funding target!
皆様のご支援のおかげ様で、チャレンジ最終日にして2nd ゴール 120%(150万円)の目標を達成することができました。誠にありがとうございました。
今回のチャレンジでこれほど多くの皆様に支えていただけたことの感謝を強く感じています。
それと同時に多くのご期待の声もいただき、ぜひそれに応えなくてはという、身の引き締まる思いも感じております。
皆様からのご支援を大切に活用させていただいて、研究を進めてまります！
Comment from academist staff
Treating incurable neurological disease with ultra-small bubbles
Makoto Ebis
Bursting “invisible” bubbles by ultrasound
You will experience “bubbles” in everyday life one way or another. For example when you wash your hands with soap or bubbles in a champagne glass, or when you boil water and bubbles pop up on the surface. “Ultrafine bubbles” are no match with these bubbles when considering the size of them. If you can imagine ordinary 2-3mm bubbles as the size of the Tokyo Dome Stadium (244m diameter), “ultrafine bubbles” are the size of marbles. They are invisible to any known optical high power magnifying microscopes.
Ultrafine bubbles have several unexplained physical characters that ordinary bubbles don’t have. For example, ultrafine bubbles exists in water for very long periods where as ordinary bubbles simply float up to the surface and disappear in minutes. These ultra-small bubbles can be stable in water for days, weeks or even months. The liquid containing the bubble is usually transparent but if you expose it to a laser pointer, the ultrafine bubbles reflects and sparkles and become visible.
Furthermore, if you expose ultrasound (high frequency inaudible sound waves) to the bubbles, they start to osculating as they expand and shrink and eventually collapse. This phenomenon is generally called “cavitation”.
The magic bullet that carries genes
Containing or persevering small gas pockets within water or blood for long periods, or collapsing them with ultrasound is a new technology that can easily be applied to revolutionary drug delivery treatment. We have been studying ways to observe ultrafine bubbles for quite a while and searched for ways to apply this unique character to medical use.
As I am a neurologist and see various neurological disorders in everyday practice, I eventually came up with the idea of using ultrafine bubbles for gene therapy. Physical or mechanical energy is often used to “inject” genes into cells. It was quite obvious that from my previous microbubble observations that combining ultrasound and ultrafine bubbles was the answer to efficiently deliver therapeutic materials or genes into the neural cells. Ultrafine bubbles can puncture very very small holes on the cell surface thus resulting in a revolutionary “drug delivery system (DDS)” method. To make it simple, ultrafine bubbles was the magic bullet to carry and deliver genes into living neural cell.
Genes can become a template for producing proteins. Once they are inserted into the cells, they exists for prolonged periods of time. If it were possible to inject a therapeutic protein producing gene template strand into neural cells, it would open up a possibility of curing disordered neural conditions. In our initial experiments, we added ultrafine bubbles in cultured mice cells and observed if gene therapy was possible. As a result, we succeeded in injecting green fluorescent protein producing genes into neural cells only when ultrafine bubbles were bursted by ultrasound energy. The safety and efficacy was reported in a journal.
Ultrafine bubbles as a means to cure Alzheimer’s disease
We are currently in the process of developing a new cure for Alzheimer’s disease with ultrafine bubbles. Alzheimer’s disease (Alzheimer-type dementia) is a slow progressive disease which deprives your memory and induces disorientation. As the disease advances, you may not be able to recognize your family’s face or start having problem talking or accomplishing everyday tasks. This disease has become a social problem all over the world especially in Japan due to its aging society.
A pathogenic protein called “amyloid beta peptide” or “tau protein” accumulates within the brain in Alzheimer’s disease patients. These proteins are like waste products that affect the function of the neurons results in learning or memory disfunction and finally disrupts the neural network of the brain.
Currently, researchers around the world are trying to develop a gene therapy drug for Alzheimer’s disease. There are several ways to combat this disease but one of them is to deliver a gene that produces a special proteolytic enzyme which eliminates amyloid beta within the brain. This gene could delay the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
We are now trying to efficiently deliver this gene to neural cells within the brain by ultrafine bubbles. The biggest challenge is to to see if we can carry the gene with ultrafine bubbles and collapse it by ultrasound energy at the right time and place, in this case the neural cells in the brain. If we are successful, we should see improvement of memory and learning in Alzheimer sickened mice. More specifically, the plan is to deliver proteolytic enzyme producing genes into the brain and monitor the behavioral rating, count the number of improved neural cell (pathological analysis). The data obtained will contribute greatly to future clinical trials.
Supporting my research project
As a neurologist, I have diagnosed various difficult to cure patients such as dementia and understand the suffering of the families. My experience with them is my major drive in developing a solution that can reverse the progress of these diseases. I was luck to have met this new technology of using ultrafine bubbles. My current belief is that this technology can be used as the ultimate means to carry drugs to the target location and sufficiently inject them into the cells by ultrasound energy.
The financial support from you will be used to purchase ultrafine bubble generators, fee to design and replicate the genes, culture cells and animals. The remaining will be used to hire technicians. I am confident that your support will lead to the success of this project to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.
Profile
Hiroshi Kida
Project timeline
| Date | Plans |
|---|---|
| March 2021 | Crowdfunding challenge |
| June 2021～ | Experiment start |
| May 2022 | Conference presentation @ Japanese Society of Neurology |
| July 2022 | Conference presentation @ Japan Society of Drug Delivery System |
| April 2023 | Submission of paper |
Pledge Rewards
We will send you the detailed progress of the research. We hope that you will feel the various difficulties in the process of research and the sense of accomplishment after overcoming them. Thank you for your support.
Research Report
25 supporters are supporting with this reward. （No quantity limit）
We will send you the detailed progress of the research. We hope that you will feel the various difficulties in the process of research and the sense of accomplishment after overcoming them. Thank you for your support.
Research Report / Named in Research Report
16 supporters are supporting with this reward. （No quantity limit）
Not only the topic of this research theme, but also the current status and future of research and development of innovative treatments for intractable neurological diseases and dementia, and various social applications of ultrafine bubbles that are not limited to the medical field. We would like to talk with you about the possibilities.
* Presentation materials will be sent to those who could not participate on the day.
Research Report / Named in Research Report / Science Cafe @ Online
36 supporters are supporting with this reward. （No quantity limit）
We will deliver the water containing ultrafine bubbles created in our laboratory in a small bottle of about 2 ml. You can enjoy the glittering ultra-fine bubbles by shining the light of a laser pointer (green is recommended!) For 2 to 3 weeks.
* This return can only be sent within Japan.
Research Report / Named in Research Report / Science Cafe @ Online / Ultrafine Bubble Water
7 supporters are supporting with this reward. （Limited to 50）
We will publish your name in the acknowledgments when the paper of this research is published. We will submit the treatise in English to an international journal, and publish it in a form that anyone can download for free from the Internet and view it freely as much as possible.
* We will make every effort to summarize the research results, but we would appreciate it if you could understand that the paper may not be published.
Research Report / Named in Research Report / Science Cafe @ Online / Ultrafine Bubble Water / Acknowledgments to the Academic Paper
8 supporters are supporting with this reward. （No quantity limit）
We will hold individual online seminars on a wide range of themes according to the interests of you. For you want to know how research is being carried out in academia (research institute), or you want to actually see the scenery of the experiment, a simulated laboratory experience is also possible, and ultrafine bubble research. For researchers who want to conduct gene therapy research for intractable neurological diseases, we can also provide lectures on more specialized methods for generating and measuring ultrafine bubbles, and know-how on gene transfer methods using them.
Research Report / Named in Research Report / Science Cafe @ Online / Ultrafine Bubble Water / Acknowledgments to the Academic Paper / Individual Research Seminars @ Online
4 supporters are supporting with this reward. （No quantity limit）
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Research Report
25
supporters
back
（No quantity limit）
Named in Research Report and others
16
supporters
back
（No quantity limit）
Science Cafe @ Online and others
36
supporters
back
（No quantity limit）
Ultrafine Bubble Water and others
7
supporters
back
（Limited to 50）
Acknowledgments to the Academic Paper and others
8
supporters
back
（No quantity limit）
Individual Research Seminars @ Online and others
4
supporters
back
（No quantity limit）
academist Prize 2nd adopted
