Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland has been awarded US Patent 7,399,900, “Nematodes as model organisms for the investigation of neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Parkinson’s disease, uses and methods for the discovery of substances and genes which can used in the treatment of the above disease states, and identification of a nematode gene.”
Inventors listed on the patent are Marius Hoener, Giuseppe Cassata, Wolfgang Link, Ralf Baumeister, and Karlheinz Tovar.
The invention relates to the nematode C. elegans as a model organism for the investigation of neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson’s disease in particular. According to its abstract, the patent describes uses and methods for the discovery of substances and genes that can be used in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, and the identification of a gene from C. elegans that is homologous to the human parkin gene. The invention further relates to those nematodes comprising an aberrant or unexpressed gene, preferably a parkin gene and/or an α-synuclein gene. Nematodes can be used for the identification and characterization of therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, as discussed in the abstract.
Dana Farber Cancer Institute has been awarded US Patent 7,399,851, “Composition and method for imaging cells.”
The inventor listed on the patent are David Livingston and Andrew Kung.
The patent relates to compositions comprising a polynucleotide encoding for a reporter gene, a selectable marker, and a regulatory element that can be used to image cells in vivo.