Applied Genetics News articles from April 2001

Applied Genetics News archives from April 2001

BASIC SCIENCE: Tracing Appetite Through the Brain.
April 1, 2001... Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Jeffrey Friedman and colleagues from several institutions have used pseudorabies virus to create a biological tracer that only propagates itself in neurons that express the leptin receptor or...

Eosinophils Blamed for Food Allergies.
April 1, 2001... A team of Cincinnati researchers has shown how eosinophils attack the digestive tract in a mouse model of food allergies. Their study appears in the April edition of Nature Immunology. Eosinophils often appear in high numbers at sites of...

GENOMICS: Functional Consortium Is Established.
April 1, 2001... Deltagen, Inc. (1003 Hamilton Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94205; Fax: 650/752-0202; Website: www.deltagen.com, Email: info@deltagen.com) is a founding member of a new international functional consortium, called the Centre for Modeling Human Disease...

How Huntingtin Causes Huntington's.
April 1, 2001... Studies from two laboratories at Johns Hopkins led by Christopher Ross suggest how a defective protein in patients with Huntington's disease (HD) causes destruction of neurons. Using what they've learned, the researchers have also been able to...

Invitrogen to Distribute TIGR's Genes.
April 1, 2001... Invitrogen Corp. (1600 Faraday Ave., Carlsbad, CA 92008; Tel: 760/603-7200, Fax: 760/603-7201) and The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) (9712 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD 20850; Tel: 301/838-0200, Fax: 301/838-0208; Website:...

Wnt Genes Control Limb Development.
April 1, 2001... Limb development has long been a source of fascination for developmental scientists. Scientists at The Salk Institute (10010 N. Torrey Pines Rd., La Jolla, CA 92037-1099; Tel: 619/453-4100) have identified a family of genes that plays a...

Methylation in the RAS Pathway.
April 1, 2001... Transatlantic biotech company Epigenomics AG (Kleine Prasidentenstrasse 1, D-10178, Berlin, Germany; Tel: +49-30-24 34 5-0, Fax: +49-30-24 34 55 55; Website: www.epigenomics.com, Email: contact@epigenomics.com, and Seattle, WA, Email:...

Creating Highly Evolved Enzymes.
April 1, 2001... A paper in the April edition of Nature Biotechnology, "DNA Shuffling Method for Generating Highly Recombined Genes and Evolved Enzymes," describes Enchira Biotechnology Corp.'s (4200 Research Forest Dr., The Woodlands, Texas 77381; Tel:...

Suppressor Gene in Epithelial Tumors.
April 1, 2001... Scientists at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) (Bethesda, MD) and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas have found a tumor suppressor gene on human chromosome 7 that may be involved in a wide range of...

Genes for Sperm Production Located.
April 1, 2001... Nearly half of all genes related to the earliest stages of sperm production reside not on the male sex Y chromosome as expected, but on the X chromosome, according to a study published in the April issue of Nature Genetics. "By default,...

ANTISENSE: Normalizing Glucose in Diabetic Animals.
April 1, 2001... ISIS 113715, an antisense inhibitor of the PTP-1B gene, has produced significant therapeutic benefit in multiple animal models of diabetes by normalizing blood glucose and insulin levels. PTP- 1B is a phosphatase that negatively regulates...

ANTIBODIES: Abgenix in New Agreements.
April 1, 2001... Abgenix, Inc. (7601 Dumbarton Circle, Fremont, CA 94555; Tel: 510/608-6500, Fax: 510/608-6511) has entered into a couple of new agreements for use of its XenoMouse technology. The PSMA Development Co., LLC, a joint venture between Progenics and...

Complement Complicates Heart Failure.
April 1, 2001... Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (25 Science Park, New Haven, CT 06511; Tel: 203/776-1790, Fax: 203/772-3655) has published results from a collaborative project with scientists from Yale University School of Medicine in the American Heart Journal....

Antibody Blocks HIV Replication.
April 1, 2001... PRO 140, an experimental drug from Progenics Pharmaceuticals, (777 Old Saw Mill River Rd., Tarrytown, NY 10591; Tel: 914/789-2800, Fax: 914/789-2817) reduced viral burdens to undetectable levels in an animal model of HIV infection. In mice...

ENZYMES: Pompe Disease Treated.
April 1, 2001... Researchers from the University of Florida, in conjunction with Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (800 Research Pkwy., Suite 200, Oklahoma City, OK 73104; Tel: 405/271-8144, Fax: 405/271-8154; Website: www.novazyme.com), have demonstrated that a...

CELL THERAPY: A Patch for Ailing Hearts.
April 1, 2001... Scientists working at Children's Hospital, Boston (Website: www.childrenshospital.org) have reported results of animal studies undertaken to develop a new tissue-engineered cardiovascular patch. The research holds promise for treatment of...

Polymer Gel Repairs Articular Cartilage.
April 1, 2001... A new polymer-based material with unique gelling properties found useful in medical applications ranging from targeted cancer treatment to tissue engineering has been developed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest...

Repairing Hearts with Bone Marrow.
April 1, 2001... New research shows it is possible to rebuild heart attack-damaged hearts with adult stem cells from bone marrow. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and New York Medical College (Valhalla, NY), demonstrated for the first time...

Stem Cell Lobbying Coalition Formed.
April 1, 2001... The new coalition-the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR)-will be devoted to ensuring that federal funds are available for embryonic stem (ES) cell research and that the current federal guidelines overseeing the research...

HORMONES AND CYTOKINES: Interferon/Albumin Treat Hepatitis C.
April 1, 2001... Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (HGSI) (9410 Key West Ave., Rockville, MD 20850; Tel: 301/309-8504, Fax: 301/309-8512) has begun a Phase I human clinical trial of Albuferon in patients infected with Hepatitis C. Albuferon is created by fusing human...

Creating Insulin- Producing Cells.
April 1, 2001... Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (9373 Towne Centre Dr., San Diego, CA 92121; Tel: 619/552-2200, Fax: 619/552-2212) has signed a license agreement with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to acquire exclusive worldwide rights to patent...

Differentiation Factor Identified.
April 1, 2001... Researchers from Michael Karin's laboratory at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have discovered a protein that is essential for formation of the outermost layer of the epidermis. Details of the discovery are...

VACCINES: Targets Identified on Human Papilloma Virus.
April 1, 2001... Researchers from Epimmune, Inc. (5820 Nancy Ridge Dr., San Diego, CA 92121; Tel: 858/860-2500, Fax: 858/860-2600) in collaboration with colleagues at Loyola University, Chicago, IL; Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands; and...

New Vaccines Clogging the Pipeline.
April 1, 2001... Over 400 new vaccines are in various stages of development, including 25 in late-stage clinical trials, according to a new study from Theta Reports (Tel: 212/262-8230; Website: www.thetareports.com). These candidate vaccines hopefully will join...

AG-BIO: Cold-Response Factor Identified.
April 1, 2001... Plants have evolved a set of specialized cold-response proteins that induce tolerance to freezing, alter water absorption and initiate a host of other processes to help the plant survive. Although cold-response network has been characterized in...

How Plants Make Oil.
April 1, 2001... For 30 years, plant scientists have searched for the critical enzyme necessary for plants to create oil. The mystery may have been solved by three groups of researchers at Iowa State University. Their discovery may make it possible for plant...

INDUSTRY NEWS: Biotech Financing Window Is Closed.
April 1, 2001... Remember the Glory Days? Last year was the most phenomenal year ever for biotech financing, with the industry raising $32 billion during the year. Year 2001 started at the opposite end, the least productive financing quarter for biotech in the...

Ivax Acquires Indiana Protein Technologies.
April 1, 2001... IVAX Corp. (4400 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, FL 33137; Tel: 305/575- 6000, Fax: 305/575-6055) has acquired the 70% of privately held Indiana Protein Technologies, Inc. (IPT) that it did not already own. IPT uses recombinant technology to develop...

New Cancer Drugs On the Way.
April 1, 2001... Anticancer drugs in the pipeline are a far cry from the traditional "scorched-earth" chemotherapy approaches. According to New Medicine's Oncology KnowledgeBASE (nm/OK); Website: www.oncologyknowledgebase.com, there are about 311 anticancer...

CALENDAR.
April 1, 2001... May 14-17, 2001, Proteomics: Delivering New Routes to Drug Discovery, Philadelphia, PA, IBC USA; Tel: 508/616-5550, Fax: 508/616-5522; Email: inq@ibcusa.com. May 15-16, 2001, Pharmaceutical and Biotech Portfolio Management, Philadelphia,...