British doctors to clone B.C. woman's DNA to cure her rare illness by Randy Boswell.

Posted online Dec 19,1996 by Ottawa Citizen Online at http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/981223/2127396.
The Canadian Press / Myrna Birch travels to England next month for a controversial cloning procedure.

Randy Boswell
The Ottawa Citizen; with files from The Canadian Press.  A 60-year-old B.C. woman is bound for Britain next month to become the first Canadian to have her own DNA cloned and injected back into her body via mouse cells as treatment for a severe immune system disorder.

Myrna Birch is scheduled to begin treatment for Behcet's Disease - a rare condition in which her body attacks its own immune system -- on Jan. 25 at a hospital in Cambridge, England. A doctor there has pioneered the use of rodent cells as a vehicle for delivering cloned, healthy DNA into patients to combat their own genetic disorders.

Ms. Birch says the procedure, known as monoclonal antibody therapy, boils down to having "little old mouse cells - as in Mickey and Minnie - reprogram my DNA".

The retired nurse, who lives in Trail, B.C., says she ferreted out information about her little-known illness, and the groundbreaking treatment for it, through information provided by Lisa (Maxfield) Alston, a UK resident who had undergone treatment by Dr.Lockwood, on line medical libraries, the Internet and by pestering her own family doctor since she was diagnosed with Behcet's in 1991.

"I've just about driven my GP nuts, plus the people at the B.C. medical library," say Ms. Birch.  "But I've put the wheels in motion.  Thank God I've had the wherewithal to do it myself, because so little is known about this syndrome that even the doctors are flying by the seat of their pants."

The disease manifests itself in something like acute arthritis, Ms. Birch says. "I would get acute arthritis, then I'd recover. Then I'd get an acute gastric ulcer, then recover.  In 1991, all hell broke loose. I got ulcers everywhere - in my scalp, up my nose, in my mouth, inside my stomach and bowel... wherever there were any pressure points, like behind my knees."

At that time, she was rushed to St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, where doctors confirmed she had Behcet's Disease, a rare, recurrent multi-system condition characterized by ulcerations, inflamed iris, inflammation in the joints and veins, and skin lesions.

It attacks the central nervous system and can cause loss of memory and other brain functions.

In here search for a cure, Ms. Birch found others who had the disease - fewer than 100 in Canada - and even found a website on the Internet for Behcet's sufferers.


Ms. (Maxfield) Alston, who received her cloned DNA nine months ago, has told Ms. Birch that her condition is vastly improved and that she is moving to Poland to head up a new branch office of the company she worked for .

The procedure involves knocking out a group of the body's T-cells, which in Behcet's patients are unable to correctly recognize infection and thus attack everything, causing inflammation throughout the body.

An antibodies is made and designed to destroy the patient's T-cells which are causing the inflammatory problem.

Ms. Birch is pressing the B.C. government to help her pay the cost of the treatment in Britain, which will run about $1,400 a day.  She is seeking the standard provincial per-diem for a hospital stay, about $500 a day, but she has so far been turned down because the experimental British procedure is not recognized in Canada.

Friends and concerned area residents have raised close to $5,000 toward her expenses.

Copyright 1998 Ottawa Citizen

Continuing a late doctor's work means life for many

The Medical Post NEWS, February 1, 2000 - by Lana Rodlie

Dr. Lockwood, expert in Behcet's syndrome, died suddenly, leaving a legacy others must carry on - by Lana Rodlie. (Staff Trail Daily Times- Trail BC.

Trail, B.C. - Humanized monoclonal antibodies are showing promise in patients with autoimmune diseases.
But work on the treatment was dealt a serious blow with the accidental death of one of the leading researchers in the field.

Now a woman with the rare autoimmune condition known as Behcet's Disease who lives in this town of 7,699 in the B.C. interior is hoping a Vancouver doctor will be able to continue research on the new treatment.

Last year, Myrna Birch, a 60 year-old registered nurse, became the first Canadian to travel to England to receive the experimental therapy under the care of Dr. Christopher Lockwood, a professor of medicine at Cambridge University.

Behcet's Disease is a rare, potentially fatal illness characterized by recurrent ulcers in the mouth and genitals; as well as skin lesions, phlebitis, vasculitis and a host of other debilitating symptoms.

The goal of the Cambridge procedure was to eliminate the T-cells that were attacking Birch's own tissue.

To do this, her own antibodies were identified and genetically engineered to fit the type of T-cell triggering the disease.

The engineered antibodies - known as CAMPATH for Cambridge Pathology - were then infused back into her intravenously.

"Six months after the treatment; my white cells are dead normal and I feel like a million bucks," Birch said in an interview.

Not only that, she did not experience known potential side-effects of the treatment such as headaches, shakes, fever, rash and hives.

During her recovery, she heard from people the world over via phone, fax and the Internet.  "My computer was burning up.  The whole Behcet's community has been walking on air for me since I've been so well."  She has encouraged other Canadians to aspire to go to Cambridge for CAMPATH treatments.

But all that hope turned to despair last September when the 53-year-old Dr. Lockwood fell off his sloop and drowned while sailing alone off the Isle of Wight.

While Birch health continues to improve, she said she is "devastated" for all the people who could use the same treatment but aren't able to get it.

"The university has suspended all CAMPATH research for at least one year," she reported. And worse - the publication of Dr. Lockwood's most recent research has been delayed.

Learning that a Texas company had acquired an exclusive sublicence for CAMPATH in 1997, Birch contacted them in the hopes they would consider taking on the Behcet's research.

Dr. Pedro Santabarbara, vice-president of medical affairs for Ilex Oncology in San Antonio, told her the company is open to receiving letters of intent from investigators for pilot studies in Behcet's.

Birch went on to one of her physicians, Vancouver Immunologist, Dr. Michael Mandl, and told him about the Texas connection.  "I've been putting enquiries out to four or five doctors to see if anyone is interested," Dr. Mandl told the Medical Post from his office in Vancouver.  "But most at Vancouver General Hospital are up to their necks (in work)."

Dr. Mandl had no idea how many patients would be involved in the study, or how much it would cost, but said he would like to gather a research team.

"Those monoclonal antibodies are very interesting," he said.  "I think that's where it's at in the future."

Ilex Oncology's main focus is on the use of CAMPATH antibodies to destroy malignant lymphocytes in conditions such as refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Ilex, together with Leukosite Inc. of Massachusetts (L&I Partners), presented findings to the Fourth Congress of the European Hematology Association in Barcelona in June 1999, reporting success in treating 93 previously treated end-stage CLL patients with CAMPATH.

An Ilex press release on the Internet quotes Dr. Kanti Rai, Chief of the division of hematology oncology at Long Island Jewish Medical Centre in New York as saying CAMPATH may very well become the next new and promising monoclonal antibody therapy for patients with leukemia.

"For our patients with CLL, CAMPATH may change the expectation from one of relentlessly progressive deterioration on palliative therapies to the hope of extended survival."

In December 1999, L&I filed a Biologics Licence Application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, receiving "fast track" designation for CAMPATH for CLL.  L&I also signed a deal with Schering AG and its subsidiary, Berlex, to market the compound after its FDA and European regulatory approval, which is expected to take about six months.

The company is also pursuing other potential cancer and non-cancer-related therapeutic applications for CAMPATH, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, multiple sclerosis and organ transplant rejection.

In recent years, Dr. Lockwood and Dr. Herman Waldmann (currently head of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University) had made great strides in using the antibodies in treatment of vasculitis.

Dr. Lockwood's most recent findings on the treatment of various forms of vasculitis - such as Wegener's granulomatosis, polyarteritis and Behcet's disease - were due to be reported at a conference held within days after his death.

Meanwhile, Myrna Birch is busy answering her phone and leading other sufferer's of autoimmune diseases to lobby for more humanized monoclonal antibody research.