Delipidation
Lipid Sciences, Inc. is founded on a unique, patented lipid removal technology, known as delipidation. This technology allows for the rapid removal of select lipids-- such as cholesterol and triglycerides--from lipoproteins and lipid-coated infectious agents.

Lipids Role in Human Health
Lipids are a part of every human living cell. Lipids are commonly bound to proteins and are thus transported throughout the body. Statistics show that diseases associated with vascular lipid deposits are the No. 1 cause of death in the industrialized world. In addition, lipid-coated viruses such as HIV, Hepatitis B and C, SARS and West Nile have resulted in millions of deaths worldwide.

A Unique Process
Our delipidation technology selectively and rapidly removes lipids from lipoproteins such as HDL (High Density Lipoprotein) and from lipid-coated viruses including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, SARS and West Nile.

Key Benefits
We believe, when returned to the body, such delipidated entities (lipoproteins or lipid-coated infectious agents) can provide a beneficial, therapeutic effect by increasing the efficiency of the body's innate mechanisms for healing itself. In addition, delipidation can be applied to other lipid-containing biological entities or disease states where lipids play a key structural and/or functional role.

Applications
Lipid Sciences is developing its technology focused on two major medical opportunities. Our focus is on treating cardiovascular disease with our HDL Therapy and viral infections using our Viral Immunotherapy.

HDL Therapy
The past decade has brought about an intense focus on the lowering of LDL cholesterol for the treatment of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. In spite of this focus and the billions of dollars spent on LDL lowering, there continues to be significant mortality and morbidity as a result of atherosclerosis. Even with LDL drug therapy at its best, the reduction of cardiovascular disease events is only 25-35%. As a result, the search began for new therapies to treat cardiovascular disease.

HDL Therapy is designed to increase or enhance HDL (good cholesterol) for the regression of atherosclerosis through the stimulation of a patient's natural reverse cholesterol transport system and increase cholesterol removal from vulnerable arterial plaques. HDL Therapy can be combined with other lipid therapies such as statin drugs, which lower LDL cholesterol, to further reduce the risk of cardiovascular events.

Viral Immunotherapy
There have been significant advances in the treatment of viral diseases such as HIV over the past twenty years. With respect to HIV, the most important treatment advances have occurred with the use of anti-retroviral drugs. While these drugs have helped millions of patients by lowering the amount of virus circulating in their blood and by helping keep their immune systems functioning by increasing CD4+ counts, there is still a pressing need for new therapies.

Anti-retroviral drugs have been shown to have significant toxicity and side effects for many of the patients that take them. However, over time, the virus may build up a resistance to the drugs and the drugs may become ineffective. Because of these limitations, extensive research has gone into creating new and more powerful therapies to treat this disease.

Viral Immunotherapy is the treatment of viral diseases, such as HIV, by modifying the infectious virus to expose viral proteins that are often hidden from a patient's immune system by the virus' lipid coat. The exposure of these proteins to a patient's immune system can allow the immune system to recognize the foreign viral proteins and mount an enhanced immune response to fight the disease.

Cardiovascular Disease

Atherosclerosis: a Cardiovascular Time Bomb
Atherosclerosis is a dynamic disease of the blood vessels caused by long-term, cumulative deposits of cholesterol plaques inside the vessel walls. If left untreated, these plaques can have debilitating or even fatal effects.

'Good' versus 'Bad' Cholesterol
Low-density lipoproteins (LDL) are often called 'bad' cholesterol because these particles carry cholesterol in the blood and deposit it in body tissue and in blood vessel walls. High-density lipoproteins (HDL), or 'good' cholesterol, remove excess cholesterol from tissues and vessel walls and carry it to the liver where it is eliminated from the body. A high LDL-to-HDL cholesterol ratio leads to the buildup of lipid-rich plaques in the arterial walls. These plaques are highly vulnerable to rupture and blood clot formation. Serious adverse cardiac events can occur if a blood clot detaches from the vessel wall and migrates through the bloodstream. Conversely, regression of such plaques could have a major impact on reducing the risk of such acute coronary events.

HDL Therapy
Our HDL Therapy has been shown to rapidly remove cholesterol from plasma. In a sense, Lipid Sciences' HDL Therapy may be able to reverse what we refer to as the "cardiovascular clock," the deposition of arterial plaque that occurs in the course of a human's life. The reversal of atherosclerosis has been referred to in scientific terms as Reverse Cholesterol Transport.

Supercharged Lipid Management
Delipidated HDL particles have been shown to be much more efficient in scavenging cholesterol than native HDL. This enhanced capacity causes the removal of lipids from the arteries and contributes to the regression of vulnerable plaques, therefore supercharging the body's own mechanism for lipid management.

Complementary Treatment
It is anticipated that plasma delipidation therapy will complement treatment with lipid-lowering drugs such as statins. After acute reduction in lipids and subsequent plaque regression via delipidation therapy, long-term statin therapy would then ensure continued control of disease progression.

Viral Infections

Lipid-enveloped viruses represent one of the two major classes of viruses. Lipid-enveloped viruses possess a lipid coat while non-lipid-coated viruses, the other class, do not. The lipid coat surrounds the protein structure and genetic material of the virus and helps protect the virus from recognition by the immune system.

The Viral Immunotherapy process makes the viral proteins more visible to the body's host-defense system. As such, Viral Immunotherapy may provide a basis for treating patients infected by a wide variety of lipid-coated viruses. A virus stripped of its protective lipid coat and exposure of its viral proteins may provoke an enhanced immune system response. Various delipidated viruses have been shown in animal studies to provide cellular and/or antibody responses and even protection upon viral exposure. For example, Viral Immunotherapy-treated Hepatitis B virus has been successfully used to vaccinate and protect young ducklings. Lipid Sciences' strategy is to pursue therapeutic applications of the Viral Immunotherapy technology in patients already infected with lipid-coated viruses.

Potential Applications

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