Yale University has been awarded US Patent No. 7,014,998, "Screening immunomodulatory agents by CTLA-4 upregulation."
Inventors listed on the patent are David Rothstein and Giacomo Basadonna.
According to its abstract, the patent protects screens that directly or indirectly measure or qualitatively observe CTLA-4 expression or function by animals or cell cultures; or that indirectly measure dependence of an agent on CTLA-4 by comparison to animals or cell cultures that lack CTLA-4. The screens can be used to identify agents that are useful in immunosuppression and the generation of immunologic tolerance for the prevention and treatment of transplant rejection, autoimmune, and inflammatory diseases, the abstract states.
Rutgers University has been awarded US Patent No. 7,015,023, "Compositions and methods for detection of active proteases."
Inventors listed on the patent are Eric Lam and Olga del Poza.
According to its abstract, the patent protects an assay system for detecting the presence or amount of selected active proteases in biological samples. The assay system uses a chimeric protease detector protein composed of three domains: (1) a repressor domain, a protease cleavage domain specific for the protease to be assayed, and a reporter domain. The reporter domain is not detectable when linked to the repressor domain, but becomes detectable when released from the repressor domain by protease-mediated cleavage. Thus, the activity of the selected protein can be determined by measuring the amount of detectable reporter in the sample. Methods and test kits for using the assay system in a variety of in vitro and in vivo applications are also described.
CyBio of Jena, Germany, has been awarded US Patent No. 7,016,032, "Device for the calibration of an optical detection channel for the two-dimensional measurement of multi-specimen carriers."
Inventors listed on the patent are Juergen Wulf, Andreas Fina, and Michael Eberhard.
According to its abstract, the patent protects a device for calibrating an optical detection channel for a two-dimensional, spatially dependent measurement of fluorescent or luminescent radiation in multi-specimen carriers permitting a highly accurate calibration of the spatial sensitivity distribution of the sensor array in the detection channel. The invention provides a plate-shaped housing; a luminescent foil inside the housing which is arranged parallel to the window so as to cover its surface; and a power source and control units in the housing for controlling the luminescent foil, so that it can be controlled for homogeneous emission of luminescent light through the window of the housing in different intensity levels, the abstract states.