Gift From The Sea

Chapter 1. The Quincy Bioscience Story

As a college student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, there was a time when I was serious about becoming a neurosurgeon. My interest in brain science was motivated by the fact that my mother has multiple sclerosis —I was keenly interested in learning how that disease process worked. But I also loved taking ideas and designing things around them. That is what changed my focus to neurochemistry. I felt it was possible to help more people successfully by adjusting brain chemistry through natural means, with supplementation or naturally-derived medicines, rather than surgery.

I took that interest to the next level after reading a case study about a patient who contracted the symptoms of Guillain Barré syndrome after a jellyfish sting, and was successfully treated with calcium channel blockers. Guillain Barré syndrome creates multiple sclerosis-like symptoms that affect the peripheral nervous system. What really fascinated me was that this person’s Guillain Barré symptoms improved to some extent from the treatment, but also that the jellyfish could inflict this problem, yet not suffer from it within its own simple nervous system. To me, that raised many questions: What is calcium’s role in damaging the nervous system? Can mediating calcium fight neurological conditions?  How can jellyfish deliver a sting and not suffer any neuropathy? Why doesn’t a jellyfish poison itself?

I began to research these remarkable creatures and the role of calcium in the nervous system. They are very simple organisms. If you take away all the higher functions of thought from the human brain, you really end up with a very simple nervous system—as simple as that of the jellyfish. I wanted to know how their design and function could help fight crippling diseases like multiple sclerosis. I began to take notes about a unique jellyfish protein called aequorin and how it might help fight these diseases. I felt it had even bigger potential than previous researchers had recognized as a simple fluorescing marker used in the lab. The connection between health and calcium regulation in the body had not been missed—but could a jellyfish protein play an integral role in health? It was an idea that had not been considered, even though calcium is the underlying electricity that runs through our bodies.