Press release
11
May 2006
FIND, ImmPORT, and PHRI announce collaboration to
develop critical diagnostic reagents for
tuberculosis
Geneva,
Switzerland -- The Foundation for Innovative
New Diagnostics (FIND), a Geneva-based
non-profit organization, together with ImmPORT
Therapeutics Inc., a California company with a
leading technology platform for antigen
discovery, and the Public Health Research
Institute (PHRI), a not-for-profit research
corporation in Newark, New Jersey, today
announced a collaboration to identify antigens
useful for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB).
“FIND aims to reduce disease
burden in developing countries through
development of affordable diagnostic tests for
poverty-related diseases. ImmPORT’s technology
enables us to identify and screen all antigens
in the genome of the TB-causing bacteria in a
fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the
cost, of conventional technologies” said Dr.
Giorgio Roscigno, CEO of FIND. “The goal is to
produce an accurate, point-of-care diagnostic
test for TB based on an antibody marker test
that is as easy to use as a pregnancy test.”
“In
response to the ever-growing threat to public
health by infectious diseases, ImmPORT has
developed a revolutionary technology that offers
a fast and cost-effective platform for
developing diagnostics and vaccines,” said Dr.
Xiaowu Liang, Chief Technical Officer of ImmPORT.
“We are very pleased that our technology can be
put to use against a serious global health
concern such as tuberculosis.”
Dr. David Perlin,
President of PHRI, said “this collaboration
represents a major commitment to create a ‘next
generation’ diagnostic product for TB, which can
help mitigate the enormous global impact of this
disease. We are delighted to have ImmPORT and
FIND as partners in this important endeavour.”
As stated in the collaborative
development agreement signed today, a multi-phase
program will be supported by FIND under which
antigens of diagnostic value for TB will be
identified. PHRI shall make its intellectual
property available for the program and will
identify antibody markers of the TB-causing
bacterium using ImmPORT’s whole-proteome
microarray chip technology platform.
Mark Perkins, Chief Scientific
Officer of FIND, states “The development of a
simple and accurate serodiagnostic test for
tuberculosis has been tried for many years,
without much success. Only a small number of
antigen targets have been used in such tests and,
until now, no strategic approach to identify the
best antigens has ever been mounted. This project
will allow us to interrogate the entire proteome
of the pathogen, and hopefully to identify a small
subset of antigens that can successfully identify
TB.”
Background on
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is a
contagious disease spread primarily by airborne
bacteria from infected individuals. It is
prevalent in developing countries, and up to a
third of the world’s population is infected.
TB is one of the greatest
threats to health worldwide, with nearly 9 million
new cases and 2 million deaths per year.
The spread of TB has been
aggravated by (i) the large numbers of people from
all over the world who travel; (ii) the worldwide
rise of multidrug-resistant TB strains; and (iii)
the global spread of HIV whose victims suffer from
markedly increased susceptibility to tuberculosis.
Sputum microscopy, currently the
most widely used method to detect tuberculosis, is
cumbersome and insensitive, leaving many patients
undetected. Bacterial culture is more sensitive,
but takes 4-6 weeks to complete and is too complex
for most settings where TB patients are screened.
The HIV pandemic has led to a
resurgence of TB as a major public health problem.
Immunodeficient HIV-positive patients are
particularly vulnerable to TB, which is
responsible for the deaths of at least 40 per cent
of patients in this group.
About FIND
The Foundation for Innovative
New Diagnostics (FIND) is a non-profit foundation
dedicated to the development and introduction of
simple, accurate, reliable and accessible
diagnostic tools for poverty related infectious
diseases in the developing world. Since its launch
at the World Health Assembly in 2003, FIND’s
initial focus has been on identifying new tools
for the diagnosis of tuberculosis. FIND is also
collaborating with the World Health Organization
for development and evaluation of new diagnostic
tests for human African trypanosomiasis, also
known as sleeping sickness, and is planning to
introduce in its project profile a program to
improve diagnostics for malaria. FIND is located
in Geneva, Switzerland. For more information,
please visit
www.finddiagnostics.org.
About ImmPORT
ImmPORT is a privately held
biotech company with innovative technologies that
offer unprecedented advantages for rapid
development of safer and more effective vaccines
and diagnostics against a broad range of
infectious diseases. The Company’s high throughput
proteome microarray chip fabrication and screening
technology provides an order of magnitude
improvement over current antigen/biomarker
discovery technologies. The technology also has
potential applications in other areas of drug
discovery. For more information please visit:
www.immport-inc.com.
About PHRI
PHRI's mission is to help
eliminate worldwide infectious disease threats
through research excellence and leadership in
public health support programs. PHRI has been on
the cutting edge of infectious disease research
since its founding in 1941, including work with
the smallpox vaccine, the identification of
cancer-causing oncogenes, the discovery of the
gene for toxic shock syndrome, and the
identification of the multidrug-resistant TB
strain "W". For more information please visit:
www.phri.org.
Media
Contact for FIND: Julie Rathbun
julie.rathbun@gmail.com or Samantha
Bolton
samanthabolton@gmail.com
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