NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Protea Biosciences has licensed technology from Johns Hopkins University that it plans to use to develop tools for improving treatment of myocardial ischemia, the company said today.
The company has licensed technology developed in the lab of Hopkins researcher Jennifer Van Eyk that has been used to identify proteins bound to human serum albumin that are associated with cardiovascular disease.
Steve Turner, Protea's CEO, said in a statement that "there are many more proteins carried by albumin, as well as changes in the albumin itself, that have the potential to yield important new data for identifying specific types of heart disease."
The exclusive license gives the Morgantown, WV-based company the rights to apply the technology to develop new products for analyzing the albumin protein, "and to create new cardiovascular disease management tools for improving the treatment of myocardial ischemia."
The company plans to develop a rapid test that would enable physicians to determine if a patient has myocardial ischemia, which would improve with medication, or ischemia related to a myocardial infarction, which would require emergency surgery. In such cases, the company said, the first hour after the onset of ischemia is the most critical for making treatment decisions.
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.