ExonHit Therapeutics is a world-leading biotech company in the field of
alternative RNA splicing, a process which when deregulated plays a key
role in various diseases. We have a special interest in some identified
splicing variants differentially implicated in APP processing. We are
interested in mapping the expression profile of such splicing variants
during aging and Alzheimer disease.
We are seeking collaboration with a laboratory having easy
access to brain biopsies of Alzheimer patients and normal, undemented,
age-matched control individuals, which would be interested in a
collaborative work for publication purpose.
The overall aim of this study is to study and document both the
expression profile in various parts of the brain (by Western blot and
immunohistochemistry using our available variant-specific antibodies)
and the function on APP processing of such splicing variants during
aging and Alzheimer disease.—Dr. Laurent Desire, Director Neurology
Recently, our two research groups in the Karolinska Institute,
Stockholm (KI) and the Centro de Biologia Molecular "Severo Ochoa,"
Madrid (CBMSO) have joined forces to determine the role of a novel
kinase cascade in AD pathology. This cascade comprises targets still
new to AD pharma-industry such as mTOR and p70 S6 kinase (p70S6K) as
well as targets already under intense study, such as glycogen synthase
kinase (GSK3). The KI group, headed by Jin-Jing Pei, entered the AD
field in 1993 via the field of human brain pathology, while Filip Lim
(CBMSO) first began AD research in 1995 as an application for his work
with gene transfer in the nervous system. The diverse skills and
know-how of the two groups are highly complementary in view of the fact
that they have now converged toward a common goal of using genetically
manipulated animal and cell models to determine the mechanism of
tauopathic neurodegeneration in AD. Between Stockholm and Madrid, we
have a wide range of resources and techniques including cDNA expression
plasmids for numerous protein kinases, lenti- and herpes- viral
vectors, neuronal cell lines and primary cultures, brain slice
cultures, transgenic mice, stereotaxic injection, behavioral tests,
histological and biochemical analyses, access to human brain banks. We
are now looking for industrial partners with an interest in identifying
targets for pharmacological intervention for AD therapy (full project
details and disclosure agreement on request).—Main investigators:
Jin-Jing Pei and Filip Lim
Seeking Collaborators.—Posted 12 April 2004
http://www.perlegen.com/ - Perlegen Sciences ,
a leader in pharmacogenomics, is seeking collaborations with companies
and research institutes that have conducted large Alzheimer clinical
trials that were subsequently discontinued. Using high-speed technology
to sequence entire human genomes, Perlegen researchers are analyzing
single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in thousands of people to
identify which SNPs can be used to optimize treatment with today’s
drugs, and which can point researchers to the underlying causes of
disease to develop tomorrow’s drugs. Perlegen is currently collaborating with several of the world’s
largest pharmaceutical companies to help identify SNP patterns that
affect drug responses and to use that knowledge to deliver safer, more
effective drugs to consumers. We have a special interest in drugs that
failed in clinical trials but which demonstrated a positive effect in a
subset of patients.
If you are a clinician, CRO, pharmaceutical or biotech
researcher or manager who has participated in such trials for
Alzheimer’s, we would like to hear from you. Perlegen is actively
looking for Alzheimer’s drug candidates that could benefit from the
company’s pharmacogenomics technology. Ideally, these would be drugs
for which blood samples were collected for genetic analysis during
clinical trials, but for which development later stalled or was
discontinued despite showing promise in earlier trials.—Dr. Raquel
Izumi, Director of Clinical Development
Desperately seeking donations of unwanted APP transgenic and
littermate control animals.—Posted 19 February 2004
No age restrictions, no questions asked,
no strings attached. We pay shipping!—Mark A. Smith
Seeking Collaborators—Posted 24 October 2003
We are a chemistry group involved in an AD research program,
looking for a collaboration with an academic team with
expertise
in the in vivo screening of γ-secretase inhibitors in transgenic
mice. We have now evidence that some of our new inhibitors are
promising
γ-secretase inhibitors in vitro (cell-free assay and cell-based
assay on cells overexpressing APP, swedish mutation have been
positively
performed). The next step should be to perform in vivo animal studies
on
Tg 2576 mice overexpressing APP695NL. We would like to screen only
two
compounds (the parent drug and its new prototype) in order to
validate
our concept.
The suggested in vivo study could be the following: After 3
days orally feeding, from the brain of these Tg 2576 mice, a
compared
analysis of the production of Aβ-40 and Aβ-42 by ELISA
method, between the 2 compounds (parent drug and the new analogue) will
give us the answer to validate our new chemical concept. If an academic lab is
interested to help us to achieve this in vivo study, we can consider
common publication. Thank you for your help.—Kraus
Seeking Collaborators—Posted 19 June 2003
A new
national project to study the cultural dimensions of Alzheimer's
disease is seeking researchers who are employing methods from oral
history and/or narrative medicine to interview Alzheimer patients who
are World War II veterans. The project is interested both in the
content of these interviews and in the therapeutic potential of the
interview experience. Please contact mailto:Michael@aplaceformom.com - Michael Verde .
Seeking Collaborators—Posted 1 April 2003
I am a doctoral student named Danita Ewing studying family nursing at Oregon Health
and Science University. I am conducting a study of family caregivers
that use the Internet to support their caregiving. The purpose of the
study is to learn how using the Internet is or is not benefiting
family caregivers in order to design web sites for caregivers which
can help meet their needs. Please visit the study website at
http://www.familycaregiverinternetstudy.net/ - http://www.familycaregiverinternetstudy.net/ to learn more about the
opportunity to participate in this study.—Danita Ewing
Seeking Collaborators—Posted 24 September 2002
Do you have any autopsy-confirmed cases of "plaque-only" or
"plaque-dominated" presenile dementia (age of onset before 65) that you
would like to see analyzed further? Hans Kluenemann and colleagues at
the University of Regensburg Medical School are looking for such cases
to complete their study of an extensive pedigree of one of Alois
Alzheimer's original patients, and to perform a clinico-pathologic
correlation with other families. All contributors will have the option
of co-authoring the resulting article.—Hans Kluenemann
Seeking Collaborators—Posted 22 August 2002
I am a Head of Geriatric Service in the oldest municipality at Havana City, Cuba. I am very interested to introduce
clinical and psychological testing in old people and demented people, mainly with vascular dementia. I am sure that we
can do something together.—Cordially, Dr. Maria Caridad Machado Porro
Seeking Collaborators to help develop novel test battery—Posted 8 July 2002
I have a PhD in neuropsychology and have done research on different types of
fluency in Alzheimer's and other geriatric patients. Findings are that two
factors underlie the performance in letter based fluency, one intial
semiautomatic and one effortful retrieval factor (late). These factors are
seen in cognitive decline due to dementia. In category fluency basically one
factor is measured, access to semantic memory. I have also used factor
analysis to find out what WAIS-Similarities and Rey-AVLT-learning measure and
correlated factor scores with white or grey matter atrophy. Today I am
developing more efficient tests for use in memory investigations and dementia
diagnosis. The method I am using is called the staircase method because it is
based on an additive model of stages of processing.
I am working privately with the development of the test battery I mentioned.
My affiliation is with Department of Psychology, Stockholm University,
Sweden. The patient groups which are of special interest to me are
Alzheimer's, frontotemporal dementia, ADHD and semantic dementia. Those
people or organizations interested in collabaoration must be interested in
the application of modern cognitive science to the neuropsychological
diagnostic work. At the moment I do some teaching at KI, Stockholm, but I
would like to work abroad, in Netherlands, UK or Canada. My specific
contribution would be expertise in multivariate statistics, database
managing, test development, clinical testing, mnemonic training and teaching
in cognition and differential dementia diagnostics.—Sven-Erik Fernaeus
Response—Posted 27 September 2002
We have been working on some of the issues you mention
above. You can see my work at:
www.medafile.com, particularly we are working on developing an on-line
test. I have also been working on developing a screening test which uses
animal naming.
However, you may be more interested in the work at:
../www.alzheimersscreen.com - www.alzheimersscreen.com . They are putting a more standard neuropsychological battery into a
computer format.
In any case, your work is definitely related to what we are trying to do.
My own interest is implementing Item Response Theory, and I am currently
trying to apply data to the analysis of the Mini-mental State Exam, on the
web (preliminary version is on medafile.com, with a calculation for the
severity of illness based on "time", but the IRT is not running yet).
collaboration, or even discussion about our developments.—Wes Ashford
