Anthony Harrelson – About Immunotherapy

Dr. Anthony Harrelson holds a PhD in Microbiology and he is the CEO/Founder of the biopharmaceutical company White Oak Industries. Dr. Anthony Harrelson and his teams at White Oak Industries are working to develop vaccines and treatments for some of the world’s most dangerous diseases, which include HIV, Ebola, H5N1 (avian flu) and more.

One of the many methods that microbiology specialists use to combat these diseases is immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is a type of treatment that recruits the body’s immune system and harnesses its ability to combat a specific disease or infection. This treatment might create an immune response to a disease or infection affecting the patient within his or her body. It also might improve the immune system’s ability to resist diseases like HIV or cancer.

Immunotherapy is sometimes known as biological therapy because it often involves the use of BRMs, or biological response modifiers. The human body will typically produce a small amount of BRMs when it detects a disease or infection, but large amounts of BRMs can be created in a laboratory to provide more effective therapy.

Some of the biological elements used in immunotherapy include interferon, monoclonal antibodies, IL-2 (interleukin-2) and different colony-stimulating factors (CSF). Each of these is tested and used for different diseases and infections. An example of the application for such treatments is their use to combat Ebola. Research teams are experimenting with monoclonal antibodies and other therapies in hope that they will prove a viable option for treating and preventing the disease. As the scientific community’s understanding of the Ebola virus improves, so does the ability to treat and fight it.

Dr. Anthony Harrelson and his teams are actively working on a vaccine for Ebola and like diseases. Without immunotherapy, such endeavors would be near-impossible in the current medical community.

​

Anthony Harrelson – About Biopharmaceuticals and Vaccines

Dr. Anthony Harrelson is the Founder and CEO of White Oak Industries, the company that reported 100% effectiveness in a vaccine tested to prevent Ebola spread among animals. He holds a PhD in Microbiology and, through White Oak Industries, Dr. Anthony Harrelson specializes in biopharmaceuticals.

A biopharmaceutical is also known as a biological medical product or a biologic. It refers to any medical product or treatment that is extracted from, semisynthesized from or manufactured in biological sources. Biopharmaceuticals can include blood, blood components, vaccines, somatic cells, gene therapies, therapeutic proteins, living cell therapies and more. There are several subsets of biopharmaceuticals, and some jurisdictions regulate biopharmaceuticals differently than other medical treatments.

The vaccine is one of the most common forms of biopharmaceuticals. Most vaccines are made by weakening or altering a bacteria or virus so that it cannot replicate. When people are exposed to the weakened virus or bacteria, they have enough of it to develop an immunity but not enough to get sick.

Vaccines can be made with four different methods. When making a vaccine from bacteria that produces toxins, the toxin is purified and killed so that it can do no harm. For certain vaccines, such as those for hepatitis B, only part of the bacteria or virus is used in the vaccine to prevent the virus or bacteria from replicating. Some viruses are prevented from replicating by destroying the blueprint before use in a vaccine. Alternately, the virus blueprint can be changed so that it replicates poorly. Each vaccine is made and altered in a way that is specific to what infection or disease that it is for.

Dr. Anthony Harrelson hopes that the process for creating a vaccine for HIV or Ebola will one day be just as common as the process for making a measles or polio vaccine.

Anthony Harrelson – What is HIV?

Dr. Anthony Harrelson, a microbiologist and international businessman, is currently working to develop a vaccine and treatment for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) alongside his research teams at White Oak Industries. HIV is the virus that can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, also known as AIDS. The human body is incapable of eliminating HIV without assistance, and though many dedicated scientists and medical professionals like Dr. Anthony Harrelson are working to find a cure and vaccine, neither currently exists.

Though no current HIV vaccine or cure exists, the disease can be controlled with the right medical treatment, provided the patient follows it strictly. Antiretroviral therapy, known as ART or ARV therapy, is the most common treatment for HIV. ART significantly improves and prolongs the lives of those infected with HIV; it can also lower their chances of spreading HIV to uninfected persons. Before the introduction of ART, those diagnosed with HIV would often progress to AIDS in a few years’ time, and pass away shortly after. Today, though, those who are diagnosed with HIV can have a near-normal life expectancy if their treatments begin shortly following their exposure to the virus.

The cells of the immune system that HIV affects are known as CD4 cells, or T-cells. T-cells are specialized defense cells that can recognize and respond to germs and bacteria within the body. Normal-functioning T-cells will multiply to create a large quantity of identical cells so that they can fight the germ. Specialized T-cells will remember the offending germ so that you become immune to a second attack by the same variety.

When left untreated and allows to progress into later stages, HIV will attack the body’s T-cells and destroy so many of them that the person can no longer defend themselves against infections and diseases. This is the latest stage of HIV and it is known as AIDS. When a person has AIDS, opportunistic cancers and infections will take advantage of the person’s weakened state, severely shortening his or her life expectancy.

AIDS is one of three stages of HIV. HIV progresses through three stages if it is left untreated – these are Acute HIV Infection, HIV Dormancy (Clinical Latency) and AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). Without treatment, those with AIDS have an approximate 3-year life expectancy. In addition to physical symptoms caused by HIV/AIDS, persons suffering from the disease often develop mental disorders caused by their struggles. They often work with specialized psychologists in addition to a team of medical professionals to control their health.

Dr. Harrelson and his teams at White Oak Industries are working to better understand immunotherapy so that they can help improve today’s understanding of the human immune system. With advanced immunotherapy, doctors will be able to use patients’ biological components to bolster their immune systems, and to help them identify and destroy invading viruses.

​

Anthony Harrelson – How Viruses Work

Dr. Anthony Harrelson is the CEO and Founder of White Oak Industries. Through his company, Dr. Harrelson works with his teams to create vaccines to fight life-threatening viruses like Ebola or HIV. Though most people are aware of viruses, and of the lethal impact of those like Ebola, many do not understand what viruses are or how they impact the human body.

If you have ever had a cold or the flu, you have had a virus. Common viruses like the flu or the common cold spread throughout the world and they seem to be unavoidable in the workplace, in school or at public outings.

A virus requires a host cell, which can be plant, animal or bacteria, to survive because it does not contain the correct chemical composition for self-sustained life. With a host cell, a virus can live and reproduce, but without a host cell, it cannot function. Viruses lie in wait to encounter a host so that they can enter a cell and replicate within the cell to infect even more host cells. This is known as the lytic cycle.

The lytic cycle begins when a virus attaches itself to a host cell. Next, the virus releases a genetic “manual” into its host cell via genetic material. This genetic material then recruits the enzymes within the host cell. The recruited enzymes build parts to make additional virus particles. After the particles are created, they assemble into new viruses. Finally, the lytic cycle ends when the new viruses exit the host cell, killing it, only to begin the cycle again when each virus finds a new host cell.

Viruses can exist for an extended period without a host cell. They can be spread through carriers like fleas or mosquitoes, they can spread by floating through the air, they can spread via direct bodily fluid transfer and they can spread by touching surfaces on which bodily fluids have dried. The last method of spread, via surfaces on which bodily fluids have dried, is an oft-underestimated form of virus transfer. For example, if a woman carrying a virus sneezes into her hands, wipes them briskly on her shirt and then opens a door, she might leave bodily fluids on the door handle. A minute later, Anthony Harrelson might walk to the door, contact her bodily fluids while opening the door, transfer them to the straw of a coffee he purchased and then place the straw in his mouth. In theory, Dr. Harrelson could have now contracted the virus from the woman.

Dr. Anthony Harrelson’s teams are making promising progress toward creating vaccines for HIV, Ebola and other dangerous viruses that can spread just as easily as in the example above.

Anthony Harrelson – RNA Interference Important to the Cause

RNA interference is a natural process that cells use to silence unwanted or harmful genes. The initial discovery of this phenomenon was in 1991. The mechanism of RNA interference is triggered by double-stranded RNA, which is not usually found in healthy cells, to turn genes off if the cell is threatened or damaged by invading viruses. In natural RNA interference, dsRNA in the cell’s cytoplasm is cut by an enzyme called Dicer into double-stranded small interfering RNA molecules which are 20-25 nucleotides long. This siRNA binds to an RNA-Induced Silencing Complex, which separates the two strands into the passenger and guide strand. The passenger strand is degraded while the RISC takes the guide strand to a specific mRNA site, leaving it so that the unwanted target protein is not produced. This is how the gene is silenced.

Anthony Harrelson is the founder and CEO of White Oak Industries, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments that utilize a body’s own immune system to fight off harmful diseases. Dr. Harrelson’s goal for his company is to develop the first HIV vaccine in the world. Harrelson is a Doctor of Microbiology and leads the forefront of biopharmaceutical theory. Anthony Harrelson works extensively with RNA Interference or RNAi. RNAi is one of the most significant discoveries in the biomedical field of the past decade. Dr. Harrelson uses RNAi in his team’s project to develop the first vaccine for HIV. RNAi has the power to mask or suppress certain genes in genetic material. Since viruses rely on their hosts’ cells to reproduce, RNAi can disrupt this production, and prevent the virus from producing the proteins it needs to continue replicating, causing the virus to die off in the body. Anthony Harrelson says that this genetic material is the key that his research team at White Oak Industries and their effort to produce immunotherapy treatments to prevent infection from HIV and other viruses.

Anthony Harrelson – HIV Treatments

Human Immunodeficiency Syndrome, also referred to as HIV, is a potentially life-threatening virus that damages your immune system and interferes with your body’s ability to fight the organisms that cause disease. It can take years before HIV weakens your immune system to the point that you have AIDS. There’s no cure for HIV/AIDS, but there are medications that can dramatically slow disease progression. Researchers over the years have split HIV into two main groups, each of which is then split into four sub-groups. Each sub-group is then segmented into several genetically distinct clades. Clade B, in particular, infects more people than the other subgroups, with 3.3 million people infected with clade B HIV worldwide. Researchers say that 187,000 new infections occur every year, 51,000 of them in the United States.

Founder and CEO, Anthony Harrelson, of White Oak Industries, has spent many years researching and developing advancements in microbiology and biopharmaceutical technology. His primary focus over the last several years has been to develop a vaccine for HIV. White Oak Industries has advanced vaccines for infectious diseases, such as HIV that are designed to use the body’s natural defenses against infections. Most of these new drugs are designed to eradicate a certain type of HIV. The research and development team at White Oak Industries is currently working on a vaccine to treat clade B of the HIV-1 group. The team at White Oak chose this particular strain of HIV because it is the most prevalent in the United States and the developed world. Dr. Harrelson says that his goal of becoming one of the world-leading biotechnology companies is not far off, thanks to his research team’s efforts in recent years. He hopes that his company can provide usable treatments to prevent and cure serious viral infections the world over. Anthony Harrelson hopes that his research will yield a commercialized product in the coming years that his company can distribute worldwide.

Anthony Harrelson – Antiviral Treatments for Ebola

Ebola is a rare and deadly disease caused by infection with one of the Ebola virus strains. Ebola is caused by infection with a virus genus Ebolavirus. There are five identified Ebola virus species, four of which are known to cause disease in humans: Ebola virus, Sudan virus, Taï Forest virus, and Bundibugyo virus. The fifth, Reston virus has caused disease in nonhuman primates, but not in humans. The Ebola virus is very rare in most parts of the world including the United States with fewer than twenty-thousand cases per year. The natural reservoir host of Ebola virus remains unknown. However, on the basis of evidence and the nature of similar viruses, researchers believe that the virus is animal-borne and that bats are the most likely reservoir.

Anthony Harrelson founded White Oak Industries, to develop new advancements in antiviral treatments. Dr. Harrelson believes that he and his team can put together an immunotherapeutic viral treatment method to prevent the spread of Ebola. Harrelson is deeply involved in the research of RNA Interference and dendritic cells. RNA Interference (RNAi) is blocking the development of certain proteins by skewing the genetic material contained in all virus particles to prevent the synthesis of certain proteins that viruses need to continue to reproduce and survive. Dendritic cells flag antigens within the body and tell the immune system where to attack. Dr. Harrelson thinks that his team can create a drug that uses the dendritic cells to direct the focus of the immune system to virus particles, thus using the body’s immune system to specifically target viral particles and infected cells. As the CEO of White Oak Industries, Dr. Harrelson is hopeful that his immunotherapies can change the world forever.