Nature Technology Corporation Receives NIH Grant for Genetic Targeting.Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers BIOWIRE2K LINCOLN, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 8, 2003 Nature Technology Corporation today announced that it has been awarded a $142,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR SBIR Small Business Innovation Research (program/grant) SBIR Space Based Infra-Red SBIR Speaker-Boundary Interference SBIR Site Backsurface-referenced Ideal Plane/Range (silicon wafers) ) grant by the National Institutes of Health. The grant is intended to assist the company in its development of gene targeting Gene targeting is a genetic technique that uses homologous recombination to change an endogenous gene. The method can be used to delete a gene, remove exons, and introduce point mutations. Gene targeting can be permanent or conditional. technology, aimed at tissue-specific expression of genes during gene therapy. Gene therapy trials have been underway for many years, but technical obstacles still stand in the way of success. Chief among them is the inability to obtain proper expression of genes once they are introduced into the patient. NTC NTC Notice NTC National Training Center NTC National Telecommunications Commission NTC National Transport Commission (Australia) NTC Negative Temperature Coefficient NTC Naval Training Center scientists are addressing this issue by using natural mobile genetic elements Mobile genetic elements (MGE) are a type of DNA that can move around within the genome. They include:
"Mobile genetic elements contain pools of gene promoters (controls) that can be selectively screened in order to obtain desirable gene function," said NTC scientist Clague Hodgson. "In addition to tissue-specific gene controls, there are hormonal and developmental gene regulators that can be trapped and selectively used in the system." The NIH "Not invented here." See digispeak. NIH - The United States National Institutes of Health. grant will permit NTC to take the technology a step farther, by focusing on a combinatorial approach in which new promoter genes are recombined and selected according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the needs of a particular gene therapy method. "The selected promoters can then be used in many types of gene delivery tools, or vectors," Hodgson added. NTC is a leading provider of vector development services for the biopharmaceutical industry. The company also manufactures custom DNA DNA: see nucleic acid. DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid One of two types of nucleic acid (the other is RNA); a complex organic compound found in all living cells and many viruses. It is the chemical substance of genes. , recombinant proteins Since human recombinants have replaced the animal version in human therapeutics, the prefix of "rh" for "human recombinant" appears less and less in the literature Human recombinants that replaced animal or harvested from human types Additional information can be found at: http://www.natx.com http://www.natx.com/VLVectors.html Related publications: Grunkemeyer, J.A., Hodgson, C.P., Cosgrove, D., (2001) Sustained tissue-specific transgene expression from a VL30 retrotransposon-derived vector. Gene Ther. Mol. Biol. 6:91-99. http://www.gtmb.org/PDFVolume6/0.8_clague_91-99.pdf Staplin, W.R., Hodgson, C.P., and Knezetic, J.A., (2002) Conserved, erythropoietin-responsive VL30 promoters isolated from erythroid progenitor cells. Blood Cells, Molecules, and Diseases. 28(2): 275-282. Staplin, WR, Knezetic, JA, (2002) BVL-1 like VL30 promoter sustains long-term expression in erythroid progenitor cells. Blood 2003, 101:1798-800 NTC's US Patents for Retrotransposon Vector Technology: 5,354,674 5,879,933 6,027,722 6,287,863 6,410,220 6,573,091 |
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