One Million Solutions in Health™ is pleased to announce that this mouse model for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in humans, based on Dr. Chi-Chao Chan’s work from the NIH, received the top designation of Blockbuster. This means the technology was highly ranked in both its Market or Partner Readiness and its Value Proposition to the Marketplace.

One Million Solutions in Health™ has established a one-of-a-kind, new partnership with the United States’ Office of Technology Transfer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to increase awareness and understanding of NIH technologies among potential partners in the life science and healthcare industries.

The Signature Square™ program brings together Subject Matter Experts to evaluate new or established scientific technology. The Signature Square™ program provides feedback to commercial providers and academics on technology in the healthcare or life science industry. The vendor or scientist discusses their solution during a live webinar presentation with an audience of relevant Subject Matter Experts. In Dr. Chan’s case, the experts were from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, along with other academic scientists from around the world who evaluated this mouse model for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in humans.

The Signature Square™ evaluation is based on several criteria that summarize a new or established technology’s Market Readiness and Value Proposition to the Marketplace. The final outcome of each evaluation results in a ranking: Blockbuster, Upstart, Novel or Innovator. This is an opportunity for technology providers to receive direct evaluation, which can be used to inform potential investors and partners.

“Dr. Chan’s technology is innovative and original,” stated Dawn Van Dam, President and CEO of One Million Solutions in Health, “It was a pleasure and an honor to be able to bring the technology to our community of Subject Matter Experts.”

Dr. Chan’s team at the National Eye Institute has developed a strain of mice as a model organism to research age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in humans. At the current time, AMD is the most prevalent form of irreversible blindness worldwide in the elderly population. In order to discover the cause of AMD, as well as treatments and cures, a model organism is needed.

Dr. Chan’s strain is a double-knock out (DKO), created from CCL2-/- mice crossed with CX3CR1-/- mice. CCL2-/- mice are reported to develop cardinal features of human AMD. Loss-of-function single nucleotide polymorphisms within CX3CR1-/- mice are also associated with AMD. Once the DKO mice were created, Dr. Chan’s team found that they developed symptoms of human AMD within 4-6 weeks. The model has been tested and has proven to be successful.

“I think it is worth experimenting with this model to see if it supports other models.”
– Feedback from a Subject Matter Expert
Dr. Chan received positive and constructive feedback from the industry, which will allow her to continue to develop her science and find partners to bring it to commercial use. Dr. Chan has received a final report detailing the Subject Matter Expert’s feedback.

For those interested in working with Dr. Chan to utilize this mouse model for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in humans, please contact Dawn Van Dam, President of One Million Solutions in Health to be put in touch with the appropriate NIH contacts.

Alternatively, if you would like to see the details of the full Report and a recording of the Signature Square™ presentation, please contact us for more details on how individuals or companies can join the Technology Evaluation Consortium™ and have full access to all of our Signature Square™ evaluations.

ABOUT ONE MILLION SOLUTIONS IN HEALTH

The goal of One Million Solutions in Health™ is to shape health care by sharing solutions and, importantly, to accelerate the discovery, development and delivery … of innovative cures, treatments and preventative measures for patients around the world.

In this next year, we will be reviewing 1000’s of new solutions and new scientific discoveries. By engaging scientists, entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, industry experts, health care professionals, and patients across various disciplines, and from around the world, we can utilize the power of the internet to disrupt things in a positive and transformative way to accelerate the movement of new solutions and scientific discoveries from the scientist to the patient.
We are on our way towards accelerating high-potential innovations, catalyzing investment and increasing awareness of, and support for, transformative ideas to improve health and save lives. By facilitating efforts to ensure organizations can Connect, Learn + Share, Innovate and Collaborate, our vision is to improve health care delivery, accelerate life sciences research and share patient and consumer-focused ideas and solutions.
As a not-for-profit, we welcome your participation and are thrilled to have you be a part of this transformative journey!

ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION CONSORTIUM

The Technology Evaluation Consortium™ from One Million Solutions in Health™ is dedicated to improving and accelerating life sciences R&D and health care outcomes. The Technology Evaluation Consortium brings together life sciences and/or health care companies and industry vendors or scientists, and other relevant partners (e.g., government and Universities), to evaluate and validate technologies or services in a collaborative environment.

The model empowers technology providers/scientists and industry end-users to collectively assess a number of solutions in a cost-effective manner, producing a depth and breadth of results that no company can achieve alone. Our mission is to triage and streamline new technology consideration for the industry and to be the place for the industry to conduct their evaluations and validations.

ABOUT DR. CHI-CHAO CHAN
Chi-Chao Chan, M.D., an American board certified ophthalmologist, is the Scientist Emerita of National Institutes of Health, the only federal government medical research institute in the USA. She studied at Zhongshan Medical College (now Sun Yat-sen University Medical School) in China (1961-1967), coming to the USA in 1968. Dr. Chan received both her bachelor (BA, 1972) and medical doctorate (MD, 1975) degrees from Johns Hopkins University, completed ophthalmology residency at Stanford University Medical Center in 1979, and two post-doctoral fellowships at the Wilmer Institute, Johns Hopkins (ophthalmic pathology, 1979-1982) and at the National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) (clinical immunology, 1982-1986). After that she was tenured at the NEI and became the Chief of the Immunopathology Section in the Laboratory of Immunology (1992-2015) and the Chief of Histopathology Core (2000-2015), NEI, NIH.

Dr. Chan is a world expert in ophthalmic pathology and ocular immunology. She has published over 640 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 55 book chapters, and two textbooks. Her h-index is 83. She also serves as an editorial board member for 20 medical journals. Her work has uncovered many aspects of uveitis (molecular and immunopathology), primary intraocular lymphoma (diagnosis) and age-related macular degeneration (molecular pathology and mouse model). Over the course of her career at NEI for 33 years, she has witnessed and helped guide tremendous progress in the understanding and treatment of eye disease. Dr. Chan has received many honors and awards, including the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Senior Achievement Award, ARVO Gold Fellow, the NIH Director Award, NEI Director Award, and the Outstanding Achievement Award in Ophthalmology and Vision Research for Oversea Chinese from the Chinese Ophthalmological Society. She has delivered many prestigious lectures in USA, China, Germany, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Canada, Saudi Arabia, including the Eugene Chan and the Winifred Mao Memorial Lectures – the name lectures in honor of her parents; the first David BenEzra Memorial Lecture in Prague; and the first Streilein Foundation for Ocular Immunology Visiting Professor in Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.

When Dr. Chan retired in June 2015, the NIH scientific directors unanimously approved her to be a NIH Scientist Emerita. The NEI hosted a Festschrift in honor of her accomplishments and long productive service to the Institute. Dr. Chan is the honorary Director of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University in China, and a member of the Sun Yat-sen University Advisory Board. She also serves on the Trustee Board of Lingnan Foundation, an American philanthropy, and seeks to contribute to the advancement of higher education in South China and thereby promote understanding between Chinese and Americans.