Brain Health Alliance

Entire-body PET Scans for Multiple Sclerosis (EPSMS)

Our EPSMS Clinical Trial, registered at ClinicalTrials.gov as the EPSMS Study NCT04390009, has been on hold for the past several years out of an abundance of caution due to the COVID19 viral pandemic. Fortunately, there has been significant progress now with both vaccinations to control the spread of the virus and anti-virals to treat the illness. We are therefore pleased to announce that our EPSMS Study, with a research team led by Drs. Alex Norbash, Dave Jordan, Dan Sewell, and Carl Taswell, will begin this spring with PET scans at UC San Diego Health Imaging and Radiology, for our initial research participants in Southern California. If you are not located in SoCal, but wish to participate in our EPSMS Study, please consider the inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria published for our clinical trial. Importantly, there is no cost to participate in the EPSMS Study. However, there are no study funds available during the initial phase of the clinical trial to pay the travel costs for participants who are not located in SoCal. A detailed list of all inclusion and exclusion criteria for the EPSMS Study can be found in the report Research Protocol for Exploratory Study of Entire-body PET Scans for Multiple Sclerosis (EPSMS) with accompanying informed consent for research participants. If you are interested in following news about our EPSMS Study, please inquire via the contact form or send email to admin@BrainHealthAlliance.net to join our community for further information and updates.

Fund-raising Campaign to Acquire an Explorer PET Scanner for SoCal

At Brain Health Alliance, we have been following developments in positron emission tomography (PET) molecular imaging for decades. The work at UC Davis on the Explorer PET scanner led by Dr. Simon Cherry deserves special attention. Indeed, successful progress with development of this technology and PET scanner by Dr. Cherry's team was recently recognized by SNMMI with the Benedict Cassen Prize given to Dr. Cherry at the 2022 Annual Meeting. His presentation on June 13 at the Special Plenary Session entitled A Matter of Time now also has an accompanying podcast published August 5 with the same title A Matter of Time. At present, there are only a few Explorer PET scanners available in the world, but none in SoCal. Therefore, BHA Directors are pleased to announce the launch of a major fund-raising campaign to acquire, install, and operate an Explorer PET scanner here in SoCal. If you are interested in supporting our fund-raising campaign, please contribute smaller donations via the donate form or send email to admin@BrainHealthAlliance.net to join our community. If you wish to contribute a larger amount, please do not hesitate to contact any of our BHA Directors especially Dr. Carl Taswell.

Other News

BHA Directors are pleased to announce the papers published by our BHAVI 2022 students. If you are a student interested in applying for BHAVI 2023, information is now available at BHAVI 2023 programs. All of us at Brain Health Alliance wish to thank our financial supporters for their donations without whom our education and research work would not be possible.