Inducible Cardiac Preferred Expression System
Background
- A variety of human diseases and conditions manifested by cardiac abnormalities or cardiac dysfunction can lead to heart failure and a compromise in the circulatory requirements of the body.
- The study of such diseases and conditions in humans is increasingly more difficult because of genetic diversity.
- However, the development of transgenic animal technology, particularly in the mouse, has provided scientists with insight into the roles of specific genes as related to cardiac diseases.
- Cardiac preferred transgenics have been used to establish structure-function relationships at the molecular, cellular and physiologic levels. But, even with cardiac-preferred promoters, transgenesis can be a blunt instrument, particularly when studying powerful biological signal proteins.
- While multiple laboratories have developed inducible transgenic systems, such as the binary, tetracycline-based system, few successes have been reported in the heart.
- Thus, development of a regulatable, transgenic model system is desirable for use in studying heart disease.
Description of Current Technology
The present technology, from the laboratory of Dr. Jeffrey Robbins, provides an inducible cardiac-preferred expression system in transgenic animals. The invention includes isolated nucleic acid molecules, expression cassettes, vectors, host cells and transgenic animals with specific cardiac abnormalities that mimic human disease. Furthermore, the technology provides methods for regulating expression of a nucleotide sequence of interest that is shown to alter a transgenic animal's susceptibility to cardiomyopathy. Cardiac-preferred promoter sequences, operably linked to cardiac-tissue specific expression patterns, are described. When translated to the human, these methods can be used to identify and design novel compounds or approaches to treat specific cardiac abnormalities and diseases. Given these tools and other specific embodiments contained within this invention, the technology will provide a useful approach not only to the design of selective therapies for a whole host of specific cardiomyopathies but will prove invaluable for determining the potential susceptibility of a patient to any one of a multitude of cardiomyopathies. Both US and PCT patent applications have been filed and are under review.
Objective
The Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation is actively seeking a corporate partner as a collaborator on further research with this technology and to be a licensee to ultimately bring novel and appropriate therapies to the public.
Contact
To discuss this opportunity further and/or to receive confidential and proprietary information relating to this technology, please contact:
Joseph D. Fondacaro, Ph.D.
Director, Intellectual Property & Venture Development
Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation
Mail Location 7032
3333 Burnet Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039
Phone 513-636-7695
Fax 513-636-8453
E-mail jdfonda@cchmc.org
Related Study Information
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