A Novel Medical Treatment for Traumatic Brain Injury
John McMichael
PO BOX 127, DELANSON NY 1205-0127
In the United States about 1.5 million people suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) each year. This type of injury results in compromised function either temporarily or permanently. Of the 1.5 million so afflicted, approximately 50,000 will die and 80,000 will have some degree of disability. The leading causes of TBI are accidents (auto, bicycle, pedestrian), assaults, and sports-related injury. Current treatment focuses on rehabilitation in the forms of physical, occupational, and speech therapy; psychiatric care; and palliative medical intervention.
Multiple evaluations of an oxidized form of a bacterial toxin, streptolysin O (SLO), have proven that molecule’s ability to prevent new scar formation and decrease or eliminate old scars in a wide variety of superficial and internal indications in man and domestic animals. Although TBI-induced scarring is not of the collagen type associated with scars in other tissues, SLO was tested in an animal for TBI and evaluated in ex-NFL players suffering from complaints associated with multiple concussions.
John McMichael received his B.S. in microbiology from the University of Maine, his Ph.D. in immunology and virology from Oregon State University, did post- doctoral work at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, and then held positions in private industry and academia. He is currently the CEO of Beech Tree Labs, Inc., a privately held company with headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island, that focuses on the discovery and early development of products for the treatment of chronic and infectious diseases.