A Transgenic Mouse for the Screening and Testing of Therapies for Schizophrenia
Background
- Schizophrenia affects approximately 1% of the world population. Of this percentage:
- 5% of patients recover to a significant extent within 5 years of starting current drug therapies.
- 65% of patients have long term recurring problems.
- 10-15% of patients develop long-term incapacity with 15% of these committing suicide.
Substantial costs, direct and indirect, are incurred by this disorder. Clinical symptoms are broad in nature, typically apparent between the ages of 15 and 45. There are a number of unreliable animal models that cause sedation and other physiological and behavioral alterations, thus creating a significant need for an ideal and relevant animal model that incorporates all aspects of schizophrenia so that reliable data can be generated on new drugs to treat this devatstating disorder.Description of Current Technology
The recent discovery of a disruption of the neuronal PAS3 (Npas3) gene in a family affected with schizophrenia allowed identification of a novel pathway involved in the pathogenesis of the disorder. The mouse Npas3 gene was subsequently found to be expressed in a pattern consistent with its putative role in schizophrenia.
Drs. Steven Potter and Eric Brunskill of Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation have created a transgenic mouse model based on the known disruption of Npas3 in schizophrenia. The present invention is a genetically altered mouse having a genome that represents a mutation of the endogenous Npas3 gene, causing a disruption in expression of the Npas3 protein. This disruption of expression is also present in cells isolated from these mice. Thus, this model is useful not only to screen drugs in vivo in a highly relevant model of schizophrenia, but allows rapid, high-throughput-type in vitro screening in cells and/or cell line taken from these mutant mice. Since the model incorporates the known genetic alteration seen in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders, it becomes a highly sophisticated and fully reliable model for testing new compounds to treat these disorders. A provisional patent application has been filed and studies continue in the inventors' laboratories.
Objective
The Research Foundation is seeking a corporate partner to enter into an option or license agreement for the evaluation and use of this model system in the development of novel and selective therapeutics to treat schizophrenia and related disorders.
Contact
To receive further confidential information to assist in evaluating this opportunity, please contact:
Joseph D. Fondacaro, PhD
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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