Ondine Biomedical Inc. is a proud supporter of the mission and goals of the PanAmerican Photodynamic Therapy Association. Launched last month, the Association’s purpose is to galvanize the basic science and expertise of photodynamic therapy in the Americas. This will help encourage the study and practice of PDT in the treatment of animal and human diseases.
Many of you may not know that photodynamic therapy has been around for centuries. In fact, the earliest recorded treatment using a photosensitizing agent and a light source occurred in ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago. Vegetable and plant substances were used as photosensitizers and sunlight was used as the light source. Patients suffering from skin diseases such as vitiligo had the photosensitizers topically applied to the damaged area, and the resulting photochemical reaction restored their tissue to a healthier state. In some cases, it even helped repigment their skin to its normal color.
Why doesn’t photodynamic therapy (PDT) cause any noticeable damage to human tissue? After all, the reaction causes damage to the bacterial membrane, and human cells have membranes as well.
This was a topic that really grabbed my attention when I first learned about photodynamic therapy. How is it possible that with the creation of highly reactive molecules are we only limiting cellular destruction to bacterial cells? Although there may be a few different answers to this question, the primary solution is that we are not. Don’t be afraid and swear off photodynamic therapy right away, here me out first. Photodynamic therapy is primarily used as a treatment option for cancers. This treatment is used on cancerous tumours formed in esophageal cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, as well as many different types. The photosensitizer is accumulated in the tumour either by direct injection or utilizing mutations of the cancerous cells that concentrate the photosensitizer inside the cell. After light is applied, the tumour cells are damaged, but the healthy cells are not greatly harmed. Why? One trait of a cancerous growth is the mutation of certain DNA repair enzymes. (Have a look at this Wikipedia article to give you a small background on DNA repair enzymes) These repair enzymes are responsible for fixing oxidative damage problems caused by free radicals. Scientific researchers, knowing this small fact about most cancerous tumour cells, use PDT and reactive oxygen species to their advantage. A healthy human cell can take some free radical “abuse”, but a tumour cell can only take so much until the cell dies. This fact, coupled with selective photosensitizer accumulation within tumour cells, makes PDT an excellent treatment option in some forms of cancer.
Ventilator-associated pneumonia is one of the most common and deadliest forms of healthcare-associated infections. In the U.S alone, more than one million patients in healthcare facilities require mechanical ventilation every year. Up to 1 in 4 of these patients are reported to develop ventilator-associated pneumonia and up to half of them will die.1
Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT), commonly known as Photodisinfection, is a non-invasive technique that used to study the reduction of biofilm in the lumen of an endotracheal tube. When patients undergo mechanical ventilation, an endotracheal tube is inserted into their throat to assist with breathing. This tube has long been recognized as a major factor in a patient’s risk for developing biofilm infections. For patients that require mechanical ventilation, such as those in ICUs, the biofilm can dislodge from the endotracheal tube and enter the lungs directly, often resulting in difficult-to-treat pneumonia.
The use of Photodisinfection to disinfect the birth canal is a novel approach that can bypass the stigma associated with HIV treatment and any reliance on patient compliance.
A higher vaginal HIV viral load has been independently associated with a higher risk of transmission. Dr. Bhagwandin’s study evaluated the use of antimicrobial Photodynamic Therapy (aPDT), also known as Photodisinfection, as a means to reduce the vaginal viral load of pregnant women infected with HIV/AIDS. In 2008, more than 1.4 million pregnant women were living with this disease. An additional 430,000 children had been infected through mother-to-child transmission.
Ondine would like to congratulate Dr. Cale Street for being profiled on national TV via CEO Clips. In this video, Dr. Street touches upon the seriousness of antibiotic resistant superbugs and Ondine’s solution to this growing problem. MRSAidTMis a novel, non-antibiotic system designed to reduce the incidence of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). In the US alone, more than 99,000 people die every year as a result of HAIs.
MRSAidTM is currently being used at Vancouver General Hospital on patients undergoing select surgeries in order to reduce their risk of developing post surgical site infections. Since MRSAidTM does not generate bacterial resistance, this is a critical milestone in the fight against HAIs and antibiotic resistant superbugs. Click here to watch another video of MRSAidTM and Dr. Cale Street being featured on Canadian national news.
Many bacteria capable of causing life-threatening infections are now resistant to a wide range of antibiotics. It is essential, therefore, that alternatives to antibiotics are developed for use in the prevention and treatment of such infections. Light-activated antimicrobial agents (LAAAs) are one possible new approach to this problem. LAAAs are compounds that display no antimicrobial activity in the dark but, when exposed to light of a certain wavelength, can kill microbes in the vicinity. One of the essential attributes of any antimicrobial agent, including a LAAA, is that it be effective at low concentrations so as to reduce the risks of any toxicity to the patient.
The new LAAAs as seen through a very powerful electron microscope. The diameter of each particle is approximately 0.000000005 metre.
December 14, 2010 was a really special day for me. I was in my office when I got the news – I had been accepted to Harvard Business School’s MBA program. Now, as my time at Ondine comes to an end, I’ve been asked to recount my story, and how I got to the enviable position of being able to leave a job that I love for an unbelievable opportunity.
I began at Ondine in January of 2008 after returning from a backpacking trip around Western Europe. I had secured the internship the summer beforehand, and viewed it as the perfect opportunity. I had always been interested in business, but I was convinced that I would be attending dental school, having written the entrance examinations during my undergraduate degree. Ondine, having a commercially available dental product, was the hybrid I was looking for. So, armed with only my UBC degree in Cell Biology and Genetics, I set off to see what business was all about.Read more »
I’ve talked before about how photodisinfection works, but I want to take a moment to clarify what I think are the three most common myths about the technology we’re working on here at Ondine.
It’s Not That New
Our products are often met with scepticism because people are unfamiliar with photodisinfection as a treatment, or even as a science. Truth be told, photodisinfection has existed for over 100 years[i], and the research behind it has a solid foundation in the literature extending back well over 20 years. Check out this short reference list if you don’t believe me. So why, with all this research, is photodisinfection only creeping into the marketplace now? The simple answer is that, until Ondine, most companies have been a little hesitant to put the work in to make it a success. Photodisinfection requires a lot from a company: an engineering team for a light source, a microbiology team for the preclinical tests, a chemistry team for the careful formulation of the photosensitizer and a regulatory team to get the product cleared for use in trials and approved clinical use. When you add in quality control, finance, administration, and sales and marketing, you can see the inherent challenges facing a company. You can trust me that the science is there (and growing), and Ondine has proven that it has what it takes to make these products a reality.
The current standard of care for aggressive periodontitis involves scaling and root planing in conjunction with antibiotic therapy. The subject of this study received scaling and root planing followed by aPDT (PeriowaveTM) in place of any antibiotic therapy. This protocol produced rapid, clinically significant results and no adverse events were reported. The significance of the results was confirmed through standard clinical tests and x-rays.
Periowave™ is a painless, non-invasive procedure that can significantly improve treatment outcomes when added to scaling and root planing.
We are thrilled to announce that the FDA has approved a human clinical study to investigate the use of photodisinfection to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). VAP occurs when a lung infection develops in a patient ventilated with an endotracheal tube and continues to be the #1 cause of healthcare-associated infections in intensive care units. In the U.S alone, more than 1.3 million patients are mechanically ventilated every year. Of these patients, 10%-20% will develop ventilator-associated pneumonia, and up to half of them will die.
“A successful VAP study would represent a key step towards the commercialization of this new application of photodisinfection which utilizes Ondine’s patented technology and products…(our technology) has been proven to be highly effective at eliminating biofilms in ex vivo models, it is therefore ideally suited for the elimination of endotracheal tube biofilms resulting in the prevention of VAP” says Carolyn Cross, Chairman & CEO of Ondine.
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