S4 E2 Depression Rx: The Tale of SAINT Magnus

02/08/22 • 63 min

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Join Arun & JoJo as they go behind the wall of the science that underpins new treatments for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

While MDD is the leading cause of both personal and societal disability, there are still inadequate treatment options. But the advent of two very areas are bringing hope! The first area is psychedelic assisted psychotherapy that we covered in our psychedelic series - Episode 7 and Episode 8. And second, more exciting and frankly a profound option is the use of the language that the brain uses to communicate and turn that into a treatment.

In this episode, we are joined by two wonderful individuals - Dr. Nolan Williams, Asst Professor at Stanford University and Dr. Brett Wingeier.

Nolan is both a psychiatrist and a neurologist and with an impressive training. He takes and compresses (quite literally) all the learnings from deep brain stimulation and Transcranial Magnetic stimulation into developing a bespoke theta burst stimulation, and identifying it for a distinct patient population for its first adaptation - in hospital, psychiatric emergency.

Brett Wingeier, the CEO of Magnus Medical is spearheading the development and commercialisation of the SAINT (Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Trial) technology via his company, Magnus Medical. In fact, based on the results of their most recent trial, Magnus Medical was offered a breakthrough device designation by FDA.

Join us as we uncover the science of this wonderful field and how Bioelectronic medicine is moving from movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease to positively impacting mental health.

This is something that you will hopefully not get anywhere else in one piece.

Join Arun & JoJo as they go behind the wall of the science that underpins new treatments for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

In this episode, we are joined by two wonderful individuals - Dr. Nolan Williams, Asst Professor at Stanford University and Dr. Brett Wingeier.

Join us as we uncover the science of this wonderful field and how Bioelectronic medicine is moving from movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease to positively impacting mental health.

This is something that you will hopefully not get anywhere else in one piece.

Previous Episode

S4 BONUS: NIH's NeuroMod Prize: A Good Idea?

The NIH's Neuromodulation Prize was announced on Jan 17, 2002. The $9.8 million dollar prize pot will be awarded over three phases.

So we did an interview for Ladan Jiracek & Neural Implant Podcast around this prize, purely because Arun has experience in working as part of the team that did the GSK Innovation Prize. If anyone has not listened to Ladan's podcast and if you work in the area of #NeuroTech, you should definitely catch up with his interviews. Hope this cross-promo gives you the motivation to check out his podcast.

In fact, this prize is modelled on the GSK Innovation Prize, for which Arun wrote the success criteria for. In fact, Arun spoke to Luminary Labs to provide his feedback as he does now after he was approached last year, based on his experience with the GSK Innovation Prize.

More information on his points can be found HERE.

Arun offers his frank comments and how this prize is not an optimal way to fund what NIH SPARC should be doing best, which is to unlock new targets for neuromodulation and bioelectronic medicine.

He doesn't just stop with the criticism of the field but also provides critical gaps in the SPARC program and what they should have and should probably fund. This is constructive criticism and appraisal of the area and should not viewed as a controversy.

Listen to our discussion with Ladan and make up your mind. Feel free to engage with us on Twitter or LinkedIn

Arun can be reached on twitter HERE.

Next Episode

S4 E3: Basic Bench - Bedside Considerations For Bioelectronic Medicines

Have you ever wondered what decisions go behind deciding if a pharmaceutical is to be administered either orally or intravenously or via inhalation. Who decides that? Well, the short answer is that it is decided based on a tested pharmaceutical developmental framework that has stood the test of time. First, it is determined by a clinical need, then by what the drug does to the body (pharmacodynamics) and what the body does to the drug (pharmacokinetics) married with other commercial question.

Now, if we flip it to Bioelectronic Medicines, we have realized that the field does not have an established framework that is available for everyone to discuss. So we sought to establish that via this episode.

We are joined by Dr. Victor Pikov, who unpicks these crucial questions, as it pertains to Bioelectronic Medicines. We discuss all the crucial questions that needs to be discussed and considered.

Special thanks to Laura Szklarski for providing us with a great testimonial and some key actions for you to consider.

Our deepest thanks to CorTec Neuro and CirTec Medical for their kind help in bringing these episodes to you.

SKRAPS will always remain free, but production of SKRAPS is not. We appreciate kind, recurring donations to help produce such content. You can find more information HERE.