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ADA Technologies Wins $1.15M NIH Grant

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – ADA Technologies has landed a $1.15 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop an analytical tool for analyzing carbohydrate-protein interactions in drug discovery and diagnostics research.

The company will use the three-year Phase 2 funding to develop a microarray platform for rapidly analyzing carbohydrate and protein interactions that serve as cancer biomarkers.

ADA said that there currently is no cost-effective tool for quickly screening for such interactions.

"Carbohydrates are potential targets for anti-cancer immunotherapy, since they are exposed at the surface of tumor cells, but hidden on normal cells. Many bacteria and other pathogens are also distinguished by carbohydrates, making them good targets for vaccines," said Xichun Zhou, a senior research scientist and principal investigator at ADA.

"Development of an inexpensive glycan analytical tool that has a high degree of accuracy could have major impact on drug discovery and the biopharmaceutical industry, as well as the diagnostic industry," Zhou added.

The Scan

Nucleotide Base Detected on Near-Earth Asteroid

Among other intriguing compounds, researchers find the nucleotide uracil, a component of RNA sequences, in samples collected from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, as they report in Nature Communications.

Clinical Trial Participants, Investigators Point to Importance of Clinical Trial Results Reporting in Canadian Study

Public reporting on clinical trial results is crucial, according to qualitative interviews with clinical trial participants, investigators, and organizers from three provinces appearing in BMJ Open.

Old Order Amish Analysis Highlights Autozygosity, Potential Ties to Blood Measures

Researchers in BMC Genomics see larger and more frequent runs-of-homozygosity in Old Order Amish participants, though only regional autozygosity coincided with two blood-based measures.

Suicidal Ideation-Linked Loci Identified Using Million Veteran Program Data

Researchers in PLOS Genetics identify risk variants within and across ancestry groups with a genome-wide association study involving veterans with or without a history of suicidal ideation.