Recent Patents on Biomarkers (Discontinued) - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2012

Acute kidney injury (AKI), a syndrome that is defined by a sudden and substantial decrease in kidney function, can be caused by a variety of mechanisms including circulatory collapse, ischemia-reperfusion injury, systemic inflammatory response, endogenous or exogenous toxicants or urinary obstruction. The causal and temporal sequence of kidney injury leading to reduced function and in turn causing an increment in Read More

Extensive pre-clinical studies have established the biological role, plausibility, and proof of concept of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) as a biomarker for acute kidney injury (AKI). In AKI, there is a rapid and massive upregulation of NGAL in the kidney. The biological role of NGAL induction is attenuation of apoptosis and an enhanced proliferative response, as well as defense of the urinary system from bacte Read More

Kidney Injury Molecule-1 (KIM-1 in humans, Kim-1 in rodents) was first reported in 1998 as a highly up regulated protein in rat ischemic kidneys, and was subsequently demonstrated as a urinary biomarker in 2002 by our laboratory. KIM-1 expression is absent in healthy kidney epithelium, but is markedly upregulated with tubular injury or dedifferentiation providing a high signal-to-noise ratio for accurate detection of kidney inju Read More

BUN and serum creatinine are not very sensitive and specific markers for the diagnosis of AKI as they are influenced by many renal and non-renal factors independent of kidney function. IL-18 is released into the urine by the injured kidney, analogous to the troponin release by injured myocardial cells after myocardial infarction, and is a more sensitive and specific early marker of AKI than BUN and serum creatinine. Th Read More

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common problem in the hospital setting and intensive care unit. Despite improved understanding, there are no effective therapies available to treat AKI. AKI is often diagnosed late and, therefore, identification of a biomarker that will facilitate early diagnosis of AKI and provide a prognosis is desirable. The recent identification of a novel biomarker, netrin-1, that is capable of diagnosing early d Read More

Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) remains a vexing clinical problem resulting in unacceptably high patient mortality, development of chronic kidney disease and accelerated progression to end stage kidney disease. Although clinical risks factors for developing AKI have been identified, there is no reasonable surveillance technique (“biomarker”) to definitively and rapidly diagnose and determine the extent of severity of AKI in any p Read More

The development of minimally invasive tests for the detection and monitoring of cancers could greatly reduce the worldwide health burden of cancer. Recent discovery of a new class of small (22mer) non-coding RNA (miRNAs) opened up new perspectives in biomarker research. Since miRNA are directly involved in the regulation of almost all key cellular processes, including development, differentiation, proliferation, ce Read More

Several patents were published for HCV p7 protein including a synthetic p7 model for drug design and screening of experimental compounds. Additionally, patents were published for identification and use of compounds as p7 inhibitors. HCV p7 protein is a viral ion channel (viroporin) that was found to be crucial for viral production through facilitating assembly and release. Accordingly, targeting the protein is expected to i Read More

The recent patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases, and are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue. The patents are categorized in fast emerging patent biomarker applications e.g. discovery and validation in drug discovery, clinical development and molecular diagnostics, bioinformatics, preclinical biomarker discovery, personalized medicine, translational biomarker Read More