PrecisionMed Launches New Human Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) and Other Collections for Genetic, Proteomic and Metabonomic Research.

GENEVA -- PrecisionMed Inc., a privately held human biobank in the San Diego area, today announced at the 11th Annual Conference of the Society for Biomolecular Screening meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, 5 new biobank collections.

CSF collections include:

--Normal subjects: Serial collection (3 over 60 hours) of CSF and PBMCs and more frequent collection of RNA, plasma, serum and urine from 30 normal subjects screened for medical and psychiatric illness.

--Alzheimer's disease: CSF, DNA, RNA, plasma, serum, PBMCs and urine from 20 subjects with probable AD.

--Mild Cognitive Impairment: CSF, DNA, RNA, plasma, serum, PBMCs and urine from 20 subjects with MCI.

Other collections include:

--Schizophrenia: Collection of DNA, RNA, plasma, serum, PBMCs and urine from 90 subjects with schizophrenia. Subjects must have been treated with olanzapine or aripiprazole and no other antipsychotic drug for at least 6 months.

--Normal Pregnancy: DNA (fetal DNA), plasma, serum and urine from 150 subjects with normal pregnancy.

In all collections diagnoses are confirmed utilizing rigorous methods including rating scales for sub typing of disease as well as cognition testing in all dementia and schizophrenia protocols.

"We are pleased to add these collections to our growing inventory in the neuroscience area," said John Flax, M.D., President and CEO of PrecisionMed. "Our current inventory includes controlled collections in schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, major depression, cystic fibrosis, bipolar I disorder, multiple sclerosis with CSF inventory in Alzheimer's disease, elderly controls, schizophrenia with matched controls and normal subjects with serial CSF over a 48 hour period. With these new collections, we are adding controlled collections in important diseases and expanding the sample types available to our customers including the availability of PBMCs."

"In the winter we intend to begin our 'Cognition Registry' involving six monthly sampling and cognition testing in up to 5000 subjects. In a separate protocol we will collect serial samples to identify markers for risk of cardiovascular events."

"The scientific value of genetic samples is a direct function of the validity and depth of the clinical phenotypic information," said Dr. Herbert Meltzer, Medical Director of PrecisionMed. "PrecisionMed has made every effort to obtain reliable information and exclude subjects when significant uncertainty exists. PrecisionMed is as precise as possible."

About PrecisionMed

PrecisionMed Inc., founded in 1994, is a privately held human biobank in the San Diego, California area.

PrecisionMed's sample bank is a repository of human blood, DNA, RNA, PBMCs, serum, plasma, urine and CSF linked to de-identified audited clinical data. PrecisionMed provides customers access to samples with associated clinical information from a population of disease-specific subjects and healthy matched controls.

PrecisionMed's samples are provided to our customers free of commercial incumbency and all samples are appropriately consented for scientific use.

PrecisionMed is skilled in performing custom collections. Subjects are enrolled into PrecisionMed collections based on strict inclusion criteria, and clinical data are carefully audited before entry into the PrecisionMed database. All these factors make PrecisionMed an attractive potential partner for research companies.