Polyhydric polymers may be converted to derivatives thereof by reaction with divinyl sulfone to provide vinyl sulfone substituted polymers, where the polymers may additionally be further derivatized, including crosslinked, and the crosslinked and non-crosslinked derivatives may be used in biomedical and other applications.

Disclosed herein are compositions and methods for use in treating neurologic and psychiatric disorders.

The present invention relates to a method for producing botulinum toxin in various fragments to then be reassembled, for safely producing same. In the present invention, devised is a method in which: botulinum toxin is produced in fragments by cleaving light and heavy chains thereof into two or three pieces, respectively, and then combined as a full-length toxin, thereby allowing high complexity in production, due to toxicity, as well as low safety and economic feasibility, to be overcome; production of water-soluble botulinum toxin is enabled by using bacteria, thereby markedly shortening the production time as compared to existing production methods; and conjugation of the produced fragments with other proteins and nanoparticles is also enabled, thereby increasing the pharmaceutical extensibility of the toxin.

A system for obtaining and analyzing data for overall joint motion from a plurality of joints of a subject experiencing a movement disorder involves a plurality of kinematic sensors configured to be placed on a body of a subject proximal a plurality of joints. The kinematic sensors are selected to measure overall joint motion with sufficient degrees of freedom for individual joints so that data collected by the sensors can be deconstructed into multiple degrees of freedom for individual joints and analyzed to provide amplitude of the movements caused by the movement disorder and/or relative contributions from and/or directional bias for each muscle group that may be implicated in the movement of each joint. The system permits determining a treatment regimen based on the amplitude of the movements and/or the relative contribution and/or directional bias of each muscle group to the movements caused by the movement disorder.

The present invention provides a method and a pharmaceutical composition for the treatment of the NDO comprising the viral expression vector carrying a transcription cassette that harbors transgene(s) inhibiting/silencing neurotransmission or synaptic transmission of afferent neurons.

An engineered clostridial neurotoxin comprising an activation loop that comprises an amino acid sequence of the formula Cys-(Xaa).sub.a-Ile-Asp/Glu-Gly-Arg-(Yaa).sub.b-Cys, wherein a is an integer from 1 to 10, b is an integer from 4 to 15, each iteration of Xaa and Yaa individually represents an amino acid, and the engineered clostridial neurotoxin is not BoNT/C1, a method for producing the same, a method of treating a disease or condition comprising administering the engineered clostridial neurotoxin or the corresponding di-chain clostridial neurotoxin, a composition comprising the engineered clostridial neurotoxin or the corresponding di-chain clostridial neurotoxin, and a polynucleotide encoding the engineered clostridial neurotoxin. A method for proteolytically processing a single-chain clostridial neurotoxin into a corresponding di-chain clostridial neurotoxin, the method comprising contacting the single-chain clostridial neurotoxin with enterokinase or factor Xa and a di-chain clostridial neurotoxin produced using such a method. A method for hydrolyzing a peptide bond of a polypeptide comprising contacting the polypeptide with an enterokinase.

The present invention relates to methods for treating diseases and disorders by administering a composition containing the neurotoxic component of a Clostridium botulinum toxin complex, wherein the composition is devoid of any other protein of the Clostridium botulinum toxin complex and wherein the composition is administered at short intervals and/or in high doses.

Described herein are methods and compositions for treating and/or preventing a microbial infection. Aspects of the invention relate to administering to a subject an agent that inhibits CGRP release and CGRP receptors. In some embodiments of any of the aspects, a subject has been diagnosed with having, or is at risk of having, a microbial infection.

Polymeric liquid formulations for instillation into the bladder or kidney for prolonged release of an active agent and methods of treatment using the formulations are described. When in contact with urine, the formulation forms a mass in the bladder or kidney. The mass entraps the active agents and provides prolonged release of the active agents.

Compositions comprising the L complex or the M complex of the botulinum neurotoxin E with its associated neurotoxin binding protein(s) (NBP), methods of making, and methods of use to treat pain and wrinkles by injecting locally. Methods of making and isolating the L and M complex comprise a multi-step process of: providing a bacterial cultured media comprising the complex of botulinum neurotoxin E and neurotoxin binding proteins; centrifuging and pelletizing the cultured media; stirring the pelletized culture at 0 to 10° C. over a period of 4 to 24 hours; centrifuging the stirred solution to obtain a supernatant; precipitating the supernatant and filtering to obtain the precipitate; and dissolving the precipitate, centrifuging and filtering to obtain a solution comprising M complex and/or L complex of botulinum neurotoxin E and its NBP; and passing the solution through a functionalized sephadex ion exchange column to isolate the complex.