[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 199 (Monday, October 15, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Page 52430]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-25829]



[[Page 52430]]

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

National Institutes of Health


Government-Owned Inventions; Availability for Licensing

AGENCY: National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service, DHHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The invention described below is owned by an agency of the 
U.S. Government and is available for licensing in the U.S., in 
accordance with 35 U.S.C. 207, to achieve expeditious commercialization 
of results of federally-funded research and development. Foreign patent 
applications are filed on selected inventions to extend market coverage 
for companies and may also be available for licensing.

ADDRESSES: Licensing information and copies of the U.S. patent 
application listed below may be obtained by contacting Catherine Joyce, 
Ph.D., J.D., at the Office of Technology Transfer, National Institutes 
of Health, 6011 Executive Boulevard, Suite 325, Rockville, Maryland 
20852-3804; telephone: 301/496-7735 ext. 258; fax: 301/402-0220; e-
mail: [email protected]. A signed Confidential Disclosure Agreement 
will be required to receive copies of the patent application.

Development of a Single Vector Containing cre Recombinase and Two 
Functional lox Sites: Active cre Produced in Eukaryotic but not 
Prokaryotic Systems,

Stan Kaczmarczyk, Jeffrey E. Green (NCI), DHHS Reference No. E-172-00/0 
filed 04 Apr 2001

    The bacterial recombinase cre will recombine lox sites within 
bacteria. Since this will occur with extremely low levels of cre, it 
has not been possible to place the cre gene within a vector which also 
contains two lox recombination site and clone the construct in 
bacteria. Therefore, in order to use cre-lox technology, the use of two 
separate vectors has been required--one containing cre and another 
containing the lox sites. The inventors have devised a strategy to 
generate vectors that contain cre in a form which is not translated in 
bacteria thereby allowing for the co-existence of two lox sites within 
the same vector. Under these circumstances, the vector can be cloned 
and grown in bacteria enabling experiments to be conducted in 
eukaryotic cells using just one vector instead of two separate vectors. 
This system provides a significant advantage in performing many types 
of experiments.
    In in vitro transfection experiments, only one vector needs to be 
incorporated into a cell instead of two separate vectors. This 
overcomes the inherent problem of trying to transfect two vectors into 
one cell, where the relative ratios of the two vectors which enter the 
cells can vary widely. Of even greater significance is the application 
of this technology to transgenic animal work where the incorporation of 
one vector into a line of transgenic animals is all that is required, 
instead of the generation of two separate lines of transgenic animals 
which then must be crossed to produce an animal which contains both 
constructs. In addition, this technology can be applied to gene therapy 
approaches in which the tissue-specific expression of a therapeutic 
gene can be activated by cre contained within the same construct. The 
technology allows generation of one vector which contains the cre-
variant and two lox sites enabling one to either switch the expression 
of one gene to another gene and/or amplify the expression of a 
particular gene to high levels in a tissue specific manner.
    This research has appeared, in part, in Kaczmarczyk and Green, 
Nucleic Acids Res 2001 Jun 15;29(12):E56.

    Dated: September 28, 2001.
Jack Spiegel,
Director, Division of Technology Development and Transfer, Office of 
Technology Transfer, National Institutes of Health.
[FR Doc. 01-25829 Filed 10-12-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4140-01-P