BRATTLEBORO-On Friday, Nov. 21, at 6 p.m at 118 Elliot Gallery, Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) and 118 Elliot will present Teresita's Dream: Cuba's Battle Against Alzheimer's, a new short film (23 minutes) by Cuban director and journalist Daniel Montero.
The film gives viewers a window into the challenges and motivations of scientist Teresita Rodriguez as she and her team work toward developing a promising new Alzheimer's drug.
Elisabeth Stevens, director, Americans for Common Sense on Cuba, a volunteer association working to overturn the U.S. blockade on Cuba and recent executive branch actions that harm the people of both countries, and Lissa Weinmann, WWAC board emerita and long-time U.S.-Cuba policy observer, will be present to join Montero (Zoomed in from Cuba) to answer questions and lead a discussion, accompanied by refreshments, following the screening.
Americans often hear of Cuba's troubles, but rarely do we capture a glance at the country's medical research and drug development, which continues, despite the burdens imposed by the 65-year U.S. embargo on its island neighbor.
Rodriguez's dream is her quest to cure Alzheimer's, inspired by her mother Amelia's own battle with the disease. As a founding member of Cuba's Center for Molecular Immunology (CIM), she discovers that a new treatment being developed for strokes could work to slow Alzheimer's down. She and her team of mostly women scientists are now pushing to finish the final clinical trials to release the patented Alzheimer's drug, called NeuroEPO (commercialized as NeuralCIM).
According to the news release, up to this point NeuroEPO has shown promising results and very few side effects (such as brain bleeds), if any, when compared to leading FDA-approved treatments for Alzheimer's and dementia. The reported results include a slowing of the progression of the disease for extended periods of time, and in some cases, improvement of a patient's cognitive ability.
Additionally, while many Alzheimer's medications are administered via injection, NeuroEPO is administered via nasal drops, making it more user-friendly for the patient and caregiver.
"More than 55 million people globally live with Alzheimer's - 7.2 million in the U.S. - but access to treatment is unequal and exorbitantly priced," stated event promoters in the news release. The filmmakers say that when NeuroEPO is ready for public use, it will be made available for all Cubans for free - and to the rest of the world at a significantly lower cost than other existing treatments on the market.
For more information, visit windhamworldaffairscouncil.org.
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