March 27, 2007

Minnesota Partnership Announces Research, Infrastructure Awards
$8.5 million for Alzheimer’s, cancer research and more

MINNEAPOLIS/ROCHESTER, Minn. -- In its third round of research funding, the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics is awarding $7.5 million in state-provided support to four new research teams and one infrastructure support project. It has also awarded $1 million to take discoveries of one of the initial Partnership research teams toward commercialization.

The research awards include three separate projects on Alzheimer’s disease, two of which build on the work of another first-round research team. The fourth project focuses on skin disease. The infrastructure funding will support innovations in bioinformatics. The commercialization award supports advancement of yet another first-round project on prostate cancer, taking those discoveries closer to the marketplace. Additional projects, funded by other sources, will be announced in coming weeks.

"These new research teams reflect both new and innovative ideas, as well as projects that build upon earlier Partnership advancements," says Frank Cerra, M.D., Senior Vice President for Health Sciences at the University of Minnesota. "Clearly we continue to focus on our research strengths and major issues confronting Minnesotans — including Alzheimer’s and cancer."

The funding is part of the $15 million investment in operational support the Partnership received from the Minnesota Legislature in 2006. The remainder of that investment is being allocated for recruiting and retaining top scientists in Minnesota and a future announcement will describe that process.

"This third round of awards is a clear sign that bipartisan support of the Minnesota Partnership is paying off not just for the state of Minnesota, but for the state of medical science," says Glenn Forbes, M.D., Mayo Clinic Rochester CEO. "The fact that we are now building on the discoveries of first-round projects and advancing them toward the marketplace is proof that the Partnership is living up to its promise."

Partnership projects are awarded competitively to University and Mayo Clinic investigators, applying jointly as research partners. Projects must represent significant diseases or conditions affecting the people of Minnesota and be studies that could not be conducted by either institution alone. The two-year funding supports the goal of developing intellectual property or attracting additional research support from federal or private sources. Projects are reviewed by a panel comprising research leaders of both institutions, and a final review is conducted by an independent, outside panel of national experts.

The Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics is a unique collaborative venture among the Mayo Clinic, University of Minnesota and State of Minnesota. The Partnership seeks to position Minnesota as a world leader in biotechnology and medical genomics applications that will result in important new medical discoveries, thereby improving health care for patients and supporting the development of new business and jobs in Minnesota. To learn more about the Partnership, visit its web site at www.minnesotapartnership.info.

Research Awards

• Karen Ashe, M.D., Ph.D., University of Minnesota
• Ronald Petersen, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic
• Predicting Alzheimer’s Disease -- $1,280,546
• Treatment of Alzheimer’s typically begins after the disease has progressed to a point where the patient has symptoms. By this time neural damage is so extensive that it is often too late for effective therapies. Investigators have identified abnormal forms of a molecule normally found in the brain, A-beta star 56 (Aβ*56), that causes temporary memory loss but does not kill neurons permanently. The type of brain neuron affected by Aβ*56 is especially important in memory. Aβ*56 may trigger the earliest phases of Alzheimer’s, before the brain has begun to degenerate. Understanding Aβ*56 will help scientists develop therapeutic drugs targeting Aβ*56 to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s, develop blood tests to measure Aβ*56, and discover how long individuals producing Aβ*56 may have before symptoms emerge. Physicians would then be able to predict whether an elderly person has a proclivity to developing Alzheimer’s, similar to the tests used to identify persons at risk for prostate cancer and heart disease.

• Michael Garwood, Ph.D., University of Minnesota
• Joseph Poduslo, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic
• Clifford Jack, Jr., M.D., Mayo Clinic
• Development of Antibody Fragments as Contrast Agents for MR Imaging of Alzheimer’s Disease Amyloid Plaques -- $1,808,607
• There is no diagnostic biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease in living patients, and clinical/psychometric measures are notoriously imprecise. This team is designing a molecule that binds to amyloid plaques in the brain -- a hallmark of early Alzheimer’s -- that can be detected by magnetic resonance imaging. Research has shown that using specific antibodies against amyloid plaques can be effective but only in early stages of the disease. They are not effective when amyloid plaques in the brain have become substantial, as in patients with mild cognitive impairment (thought to be a precursor to full Alzheimer’s disease). The researchers aim to develop an antibody-based contrast agent that selectively binds to amyloid plaques, resulting in detection by high field strength MRI. If amyloid plaques are detected, individuals can be screened and treated at an earlier age. Such a contrast agent will not only be useful for early detection but also provide a direct way to test anti-amyloid therapies currently being developed.

• Clifford Jack, Jr., M.D., Mayo Clinic
• Joseph Poduslo, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic
• Michael Garwood, Ph.D., University of Minnesota
• Validation of Magnetic Resonance Techniques as Measures of Therapeutic Efficacy for Drug Discovery in Alzheimer’s Disease -- $2,184,735
• Alzheimer’s disease will become one of the major public health problems facing all industrialized nations in the coming years. Current treatments temporarily minimize symptoms but do not change the actual progression of the disease. Models of human Alzheimer’s have been created by inserting affected human genes into mice (transgenic Alzheimer’s mice). This allows some evaluation of potential treatments but is far from ideal. To bridge the gap, this team is using technical abilities they previously developed to detect tiny amyloid deposits using high field strength magnetic resonance microimaging (MRMI). They have also previously detected age-related changes in brain chemistry using high-resolution magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Using these two techniques they will assess whether a series of specific therapies works to prevent the formation of Alzheimer’s pathology in the brains of transgenic mice, which could lead to discovery of drugs to prevent Alzheimer’s disease in humans.

• Douglas Plager, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic
• Sheila M.F. Torres, D.V.M., M.S., Ph.D., D.A.C.V.D., University of Minnesota
• Therapeutic Targets for Atopic Dermatitis -- $709,852
• Human atopic dermatitis is an extremely itchy rash that often becomes infected. It is closely related to other allergic diseases, such as asthma and allergic rhinitis. It has become more common in recent decades, affecting approximately 15 million Americans and an estimated 10% of children in the United States. Smallpox vaccination is prohibited for persons with atopic dermatitis, compromising our national readiness against bioterrorism. Dogs develop a form very similar to the condition in humans, and studying the disease in animals could result in better understanding and more effective treatments for humans. This team is investigating an antibody that has been shown to inhibit allergic inflammation. They will also identify the genes that are incorrectly expressed in dogs with the condition and compare these genes to those incorrectly expressed in humans. Correcting the expression of these genes can be pursued to alleviate atopic dermatitis and allergy in both dogs and humans.

Infrastructure Award

• Jean-Pierre Kocher, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic
• Birali Runesha, Ph.D., University of Minnesota
• Tropix: The Research Organizer for Project Information eXchange -- $1,568,505
• The Research Organizer for Project Information eXchange (TROPIX) is a Web-based system that enables researchers to electronically submit service requests directly to the appropriate facilities at Mayo and the University and records information on projects and biospecimens submitted for analysis to facilities. Once analyzed, TROPIX records the location of the resulting experimental data, enabling simple, yet secure, data-sharing among investigators. It has a sophisticated search procedure to query existing projects allowing investigators to increase their scientific knowledge across both sites and promoting collaborations. Information sharing is controlled by investigators using security procedures to insure privacy.

Commercialization Advancement

• Biomarkers of Aggressive Prostate Cancer -- $1,000,000
• This commercialization award seeks to further validate the discoveries made by the first-round team (Drs. Klee and Connelly) in identifying likely indicators of aggressive prostate cancer. The 70 identified proteins will be narrowed in the coming months to add value to the original collaborative project before the findings are transferred to business.

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Contact:

Robert Nellis
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507-284-2511 (evenings)
newsbureau@mayo.edu

Sarah Youngerman
612-624-4604