Sophie Ryan's Journey

Sophie Isabella Ryan was born on October 3rd, 2012 weighing in at a whopping 9lbs 7.4oz. She was the picture of health, and everything her parents Tracy & Josh could have ever dreamt of. But when Sophie’s left eye began shaking when she was only 8 ½ months old, a series of doctor’s appointments led to an MRI that uncovered the unthinkable.


On June 23rd, 2013 Sophie was diagnosed with a low-grade brain tumor that luckily has a 90% survival rate, but unluckily has an over 85% recurrence rate. Even worse, the only option for these tumors was chemotherapy, with few advancements made over the last forty years for kids stricken by ANY form of cancer. In fact, only 3.9% of ALL government funding goes to pediatric cancer research.


After first completely dismissing cannabis as an option due to being stigmatized about the dangers around the plant, the Ryans stopped and took a second look when celebrity talk show host and movie star Ricki Lake, and her documentary film partner Abby Epstein were connected to them through social media. They told the Ryans about a film they were producing about kids using cannabis for cancer, now on Netflix titled Weed the People, and their lives forever changed. The Ryans soon launched a medical cannabis tincture company called CannaKids that operated for 8-years in California. CannaKids serviced patients of all ages within their state, and consulted thousands of patients around the world working with extremely qualified nurses to provide dosing and guidance.


When Tracy Ryan first met Dr. Anahid Jewett who is the world leading cancer research scientist in the field of Natural Killer Cells, Sophie was 6 years old and still battling her relentless tumor. It was Tracy's desperation to find a cure for her young daughter's brain tumor that caused them to cross paths and begin working together. When Sophie required brain surgery to debulk her tumor, the Ryans saw this as an opportunity to get Sophie's live tissue into mice for a personalized clinical trial. Dr. Jewett immediately offered to help after hearing Sophie's story. But it was when she learned that she had been taking medical cannabis since she was 9 months old, and her unexplainable healing, she became even more interested in learning more. 


When Dr. Jewett tested Sophie's Natural Killer Cells, she discovered her immune function was functioning at impossibly high levels. Especially considering she was on 4 different chemos at the time. She asked Tracy to bring her more patients to test, and 29 cancer patients ranging from children to seniors were enrolled. The findings were groundbreaking and showed a direct link between Dr. Jewett's field of study and Tracy's passion for using cannabis as a medicine


Since this first encounter, Tracy and Dr. Jewett have worked closely to bring forth non-toxic therapeutics for patients in need including Dr. Jewett's Supercharged Natural Killer Cell therapies. Together, along with their partners Tim Brahm and Greg Brophy, they have launched NKore BioTherapeutics to hopefully make that dream a reality in the very near future, so patients like Sophie no longer have to suffer when diagnosed with such a challenging disease. 

Sophie's NK Cell Treatment Results

Since starting NKore, Dr. Jewett collaborated with a local research team that had the ability to administer an "activated" NK Cell therapy for Sophie using her dad's donated NK Cells. A close relative to NKore's "supercharged" NK Cell therapy, but scientifically proven to have substantially less killing ability, these activated cells allowed the team to get a much easier approval so Sophie could receive treatment immediately. The results have been staggering and Sophie has never been healthier!


Sophie has a low-grade brain tumor, Optic Pathway Glioma, that never goes away with conventional medicine that's available in hospitals today. She failed 7 chemotherapies and clinical trials. She has not seen shrinkage in her tumor in over 6 years, even on the most toxic of all therapies. She was given an NK Cell infusion in September of 2021, and a second in December of 2021.


The MRIs below are perfectly lined up to show the differences that have been documented in the shrinkage in her disease since her last MRI prior to treatment in May of 2021. You will notice a gaping hole on the left which is where brain and disease were removed in February of 2021. The white, chunky objects around the middle of her brain is the disease which you can see is now almost gone. The more circular object is a cyst that is fed by the tumor that can no longer be seen in slices 7-9 in both the May and August of 2022 images.


Sophie had not had an infusion in 8 months when the scans were performed in the top row. There isn't a treatment available today that can continue to kill disease while off therapy like this. We corrected the immune system in Sophie's brain, after discovering she had no functioning NK Cells, so her body can identify and target the disease naturally without the toxicity. She has never been healthier, her immune function is at above natural human levels, and she has continued to get vision back that at one point was almost completely gone.


We are confident that Sophie will soon be cancer free. When that happens it will be the first time in history that this type of tumor, that is absent for the mutation NF1, has been eradicated. Our team at NKore is working feverishly so we can make our treatments available that we believe to be far more effective than the one Sophie received. Once available at clinics, Saving Sophie will donate the funds directly to the clinic administering our treatments so the expenses can be reduced and the patients out-of-pocket burden is lessoned. At no time will NKore financially benefit from the dollars raised.

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