Dominic D'Agostino

So they have the policymakers and the people at the foundations, people at the federal government, the NIH, the DOD, they have to be convinced that this is going to work.

We're talking about something way beyond the ketogenic diet here.

We're talking about a very comprehensive, calculated, metabolic-based intervention that targets diet, glycolytic drugs, anti-glutamine drugs, and then there's a redox component too.

So it's synergized with different drugs.

So that could be hyperbaric oxygen therapy, but radiation and chemo kill cancer cells through oxidative stress.

And then another thing too, so where the money is actually, or the interest is going now, is that the focus has been using ketone metabolic therapy as an adjuvant for Moffitt Institute CAR T therapy for lymphoma.

So they have that project, but just working on some grants for ketone metabolic therapy.

And it's strictly, they're focused on beta-hydroxybutyrate because that correlates with the adaptive immune response that will augment

checkpoint inhibitors, specifically PD-1 inhibitors and CTLA for checkpoint inhibitors.

And also the ketogenic diet, it can expand the CAR-T cells.

Because of that observation and that correlated with beta-hydroxybutyrate seemed to be involved with CAR-T cell expansion, that became of interest.

So right now, the funding agencies are kind of focused on augmenting the standard of care because we already use the standard of care.

Yep.

But to run a clinical trial with dietary therapies involved, you have to have oncologists who are savvy and knowledgeable about ketogenic diets.

You have to have an RD team.

The inclusion-exclusion criteria are really important.

The heterogeneity of many people with brain tumors, I mean, that's something to consider.

Also, when you have a patient with a glioblastoma, the pharmaceutical companies are scrambling to get their drug into that patient.

So they are paying a lot of money to the major institutes to conduct the research.

You're familiar with the Alzheimer's drugs.