User:Zenografia/sandbox/Zenografia

Biography Juan R. Sanchez-Ramos, PhD, MD is a distinguished physician-scientist born in Venezuela, July 16, 1945. He currently resides in Tampa, Florida where he is the “Helen Ellis Endowed Chair in Parkinson’s Disease Research” in the Department of Neurology, University of South Florida College of Medicine. His faculty profile can be seen below: https://health.usf.edu/medicine/neurology/profiles/9497/Sanchez-Ramos Early Life Father; Juan Ramon Sanchez y Sanchez was a physician who practiced medicine in Ciudad Ojeda, Venezuela. He had roots in the Dominican Republic and Canary Islands. Juan’s great-great grandfather Maestro Jose Reyes (b, 1835) was a musician and composer who wrote the National Anthem of the Dominican Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Rufino_Reyes_y_Siancas. Maestro Reyes was descended from (Jeronimo Sanchez; b 1765) a Spanish Naval Officer from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands who settled in Santo Domingo. Mother: Carmen Ramos was born in in La Vega, Dominican Republic   After immigration to the US in 1950 they became  naturalized US citizens. He and his older brother Luis attended boarding school at Champlain Academy in Port Henry, New York. Education From 1963-1967, Juan attended the University of Chicago, receiving a BS in Biochemistry. In addition to his biology course work, he took elective art courses at the University’s Midway Studios. He was influenced by the graphic artist and illustrator, Virgil Burnett. Rather than going on to an advanced degree in biological sciences or in Medicine, he opted to pursue an art career. He moved to Paris in 1967 where he considered applying to the Ecole de Beaux Arts. As he was preparing a portfolio for the application, he met the film director Peter Goldman who invited him to work as an assistant in the film “Wheel of Ashes” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_Ashes After living 2 more years in Spain and Denmark as a free-lance artist, he gave up his goal of becoming a professional artist. He came to realize that his dream of being a creative artist could not be attained unless he was willing to work as a commercial artist. He turned back to his interest in biology, intrigued by the effects of psychedelic drugs on the art work created by several of his artist friends. With the goal of combining his interests in brain biology and art, he returned to the University of Chicago in 1971 to purse a PhD in neuropharmacology. Under the mentorship of Charles (Bob) Schuster, PhD, he completed a PhD degree in Behavioral Pharmacology (Thesis title: Opiate Agonist and Antagonist Interactions in the Morphine Dependent Rhesus Monkey). While pursuing his degree, he volunteered as Art Editor for Chicago Review, the quarterly literary review in order to nourish he need to draw. https://www.chicagoreview.org/issues/issue-2603/. He also published illustrations in Poetry, the national Poetry magazine founded by Harriet Monroe. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/71066/june-1975 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/71057/september-1974 After two years of post-doctoral research on opioid dependence, he was convinced by his Post-doctoral mentor, Dr. Lloyd Roth, PhD, MD, to pursue a PhD to MD curriculum. The goal was to become a physician-scientist who bridges between basic neuroscience research and clinical work with patients. He received the MD degree at University of Illinois in Chicago (1981). He was accepted into the James Scholar Program for Independent Studies in the Medical School, allowing him to customize his course work based on his prior work as a PhD graduate student. While in medical school, he met Dr. Louis Caplan, a neurologist well-known for his work on stroke. Dr. Caplan was impressed the neuroanatomical sketches Juan would include in his consultation reports during his student clerkship in Neurology. Dr. Caplan encouraged him to become a Neurologist rather than a Psychiatrist because of his mastery of functional neuroanatomy, in part due to his graduate school work with primate brain. Dr. Caplan asked if he would be willing to illustrate the book he was working on, entitled “Stroke a Clinical Approach” published in Boston, Butterworths, 1986. Dr. Sanchez-Ramos was able to complete the illustrations during his neurology residency at University of Chicago. He also provided illustrations for another book by Dr. Caplan, “The Posterior Circulation Disease” published by Blackwell Science, c1996. Dr. Sanchez-Ramos continues to create visual art using the pen name Zeno. Past and recent works can be seen on his website: http://zenografia.com/neon-neurons-gallery.html Marriage and Children Dr. Sanchez-Ramos married Catherine O’Neill in 1984 in Chicago, Illinois. They remain married and have 3 adult children and 2 grand-children. •	Zachary Sanchez-O’Neill (b 1985) •	Zoe Allegra Sanchez-O’Neill (b 1988) •	Sofia Isabel Sanchez-O’Neill (b 1991) Research Topics Dr. Sanchez-Ramos decided to become an expert in Movement Disorders after reading a report about a localized cluster of young drug abusers in San Francisco who developed Parkinson’s disease following  intravenous injections of underground synthetic opioid  known as “China White”. He completed a clinical fellowship in Movement Disorders (Parkinson’s Disease and Huntington’s Disease) under the guidance of Dr. William Weiner at the University of Miami. During that time, he worked with Dr. Franz Hefti testing a range of environmental toxicants that might be responsible for destroying dopamine neurons, the brain cells that degenerate in Parkinson’s Disease. He rose to the ranks of Associate Professor at the University of Miami Medical School. In 1996, he was recruited to the University of South Florida, Tampa where he was awarded the Helen Ellis Endowed Chair in Parkinson’s Disease Research. After a decade of studying cell death, he opted to study neurogenesis, the birth of new brain cells. His laboratory was the first to demonstrate that bone marrow cells contain stem/progenitor cells that can be induced to differentiate into neural cells (1, 2). After many failed attempts to utilized these bone marrow stem/progenitor cells to reverse parkinsonism by transplanting them into mouse models, he opted to use hematopoietic cytokine, G-CSF (filgrastim) to mobilize blood stem cells. His laboratory team were able to show benefits of G-CSF treatment in both PD and Alzheimer’s mouse models (3, 4).

He also became involved in the USA-Venezuela Huntington’s Disease project, directed by Dr. Nancy Wexler (5). The goal was to study the large HD pedigree in the Lake Maracaibo reigon of Venezuela in order to identify the causative gene. This project eventually identified the HD gene and results over the next few decades to advances in understanding the pathogenesis of HD. Most importantly, these findings have led to the application of gene-silencing molecules to stop the illness from progressing. Dr. Sanchez-Ramos Huntington’s Disease Clinic was chosen to be one of the US Centers to study the impact of gene-silencing in HD patients. Hoffman-LaRoche is sponsoring a multi-center Phase 3 Clinical Study designed to assess the efficacy of anti-sense oligonucleotides (ASO) to slow or stop progression of disease. The current approach requires delivery of the ASO directly into the cerebrospinal fluid by monthly intrathecal injections. Dr. Sanchez-Ramos was funded to develop a novel, non-invasive approach for chronic, intermittent delivery of ASOs packaged in nanoparticles that can be instilled into the nasal cavity. (NIH RO1 NS095563-01 “Nanocarriers Designed to Deliver Nucleic Acids to Brain”). Published works Go to OrcID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3391-7857 for list of published work by Dr. Sanchez-Ramos. Honours, decorations, awards and distinctions

NIH pre-doctoral fellowship, Dept of Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences, University of Chicago, (1971-1976)

James Scholar Program of Independent Studies, University of Illinois College of Medicine (1978 83)

Bertram A. Richardson Foreign Scholarship (1981)

Clinical Investigator Development Award (NIH) 1989 1991

"Prix de la qualite de la Realisation technique" awarded during Concours International des Technolgie de la Creation held in Paris, 19 November, 1991 for hologram entitled "Crystal Dreams"

Helen E. Ellis Endowed Chair in Parkinson’s Disease Research (1996)

University of South Florida Outstanding Research Award for nationally recognized research on transdifferentiation of bone marrow stromal cells to neural cells (2003)

Award for animation entitled “Dancing DNA” sponsored by the University of Chicago Materials Research Center in their annual Sights and Sounds of Science Project (2004)

Patents: Mash D, Sanchez-Ramos J, and Hearn L. “A Method of Treating Chemical Dependency in Mammals and A Composition Thereof” United States Patent Office (Awarded Feb 19, 2002) # 6,348,456

Sanchez-Ramos, J, S. Song, P. Sanberg, W. Janssen, T. Freeman. “Bone Marrow Cells as a Source of Neurons for Brain and Spinal Cord Repair” United States Patent Office (Awarded March 3, 2003 # 6,528,245 B2

Sanberg, P, Sanchez-Ramos J, Willing A, Richard, DD. “Human Cord Blood As A Source Of Neural Tissue For Repair Of The Brain And Spinal Cord” United States Patent Office (Awarded Jan 9, 2007 Patent # 7,160,724 B2)

Sanchez-Ramos, J. Richard Heller and Mark Jaroszeski. “Nervous Tissue Electrode Device” United States Patent Office (Awarded July 19, 2007 Patent # 0167903 A1

Sanchez-Ramos, J. Song, S. and Sanberg, P. “Novel Cellular Delivery into the Central Nervous System of Brain and Atrial Natriuretic Peptides” United States Patent Office (pending) Filed: September 6, 2002

Sanchez-Ramos J,  S. Song, C. Cao, G. Arendash “Method of Treating Alzheimer's Disease with Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF)”  submitted to US Patent Office, USF Ref. No. 08A003PR

Song S, Sanchez-Ramos J. “Promotion of Brain Self-Repair by Stereotaxic Micro Stimulation” US Pat 8,452,408

Sanchez-Ramos, J Sava, V, Song S, Mohapatra, S.  Divalent-Metal Coated Nanoparticles For Delivery Of Compositions Into The Central Nervous System By Nasal Insufflation U.S. Patent No. 9,938,526 B2 Bibliography from this Article 1.	Sanchez-Ramos JR. Neural cells derived from adult bone marrow and umbilical cord blood. Journal of Neuroscience Research. 2002;69(6):880-93. 2.	Sanchez-Ramos J, Song S, Janssen W, Sanberg P, Freeman T, inventors; University of South Florida, assignee. Bone marrow cells as a source of neurons for brain and spinal cord repair patent US 6528245. 2003 Mar. 4, 2003. 3.	Sanchez-Ramos J, Song S, Sava V, Catlow B, Lin X, Mori T, et al. Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor Decreases Brain Amyloid Burden And Reverses Cognitive Impairment In Alzheimer's Mice. Neuroscience. 2009;163(1):55-72. 4.	Sanchez-Ramos J, Mori T, Sava V, Song S. Effects of G-CSF in the MPTP mouse model of PD. Movement Disorders. 2009;24:S45-S. 5.	Penney JB, Jr., Young AB, Shoulson I, Starosta-Rubenstein S, Snodgrass SR, Sanchez-Ramos J, et al. Huntington's disease in Venezuela: 7 years of follow-up on symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. Mov Disord. 1990;5(2):93-9.