NEW YORK, Sept. 18 — NaPro BioTherapeutics of Boulder, Col., said it recently established a genomics division, NaPro Genomics, under the scientific direction of Eric Kmiec at the University of Delaware’s Delaware Biotechnology Institute. Kmiec, who invented and developed a targeted gene repair technology that NaPro licensed, directs g enomics research at the institute and is an associate professor in the university’s department of biological sciences. NaPro develops and licenses genetic technologies for applications in therapeutics and diagnostics, pharmacogenomics, and agribiotechnology.
Several other researchers and clinicians in the areas of genetics, genomics, and genetic disease have also joined NaPro’s genomics scientific advisory board. Among them are: Robert Pollack, director of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion at Columbia University; John Weinstein, the soon-to-be head of the Genomics and Bioinformatics Group of the Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology of the National Cancer Institute; and Nancy Wexler, Higgins professor of neuropsychology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and president of the Hereditary Disease Foundation.
Commenting on his role as chairman of the scientific advisory board, Pollack said in a statement, “We have assembled a diverse group of articulate and productive scientists to help NaPro Genomics gain a full measure of clinical utility from our technologies. In particular, the expertise of the SAB will assist NaPro scientists in bringing this technology to bear on sickle-cell anemia, Huntington's disease, and the problem of the emergence of drug resistant cancer cells as a result of chemotherapy."