Charles Boone, a professor at the University of Toronto, has been awarded US Patent No. 7,074,584, "Yeast arrays, methods of making such arrays, and methods of analyzing such arrays."
Boone is the sole inventor on the patent.
According to its abstract, the patent protects a method of detecting genetic interactions in yeast. The method can also be used to screen for function of biological effectors on yeast. The method encompasses crossing yeast strains with genetic alterations to acquire double mutants. The phenotypes of these double mutants are then checked to detect genetic interactions between them. The method can be used to assign function to yeast genes and their viral, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic homologs, and aptamers; and can also be used to study yeast two-hybrid interactions and to find genes that regulate certain yeast promoters, the abstract states.
Becton Dickinson has been awarded US Patent No. 7,074,615, "Peptides for enhanced cell attachment and cell growth."
Inventors listed on the patent are Bryce Chaney, Mohammad Heidaran, and Andrea Liebmann-Vinson.
According to its abstract, the patent protects cell adhesion-promoting peptide combinations that promote cell attachment or cell adhesion to culture surfaces that are otherwise cell adhesion resistant. The patent describes a combination of peptides that, when covalently coupled to a cell adhesion-resistant layer such as hyaluronic acid that has been created on a polystyrene surface, promote cell attachment, growth differentiation, and execution of other desired cellular functions in culture, the abstract states.