[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 217 (Friday, November 8, 2002)]
[Notices]
[Pages 68145-68146]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-28537]


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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, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The inventions listed below are owned by agencies of the U.S. 
Government and are 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 
applications listed below may be obtained by writing to the indicated 
licensing contact at the Office of Technology Transfer, National 
Institutes of Health, 6011 Executive Boulevard, Suite 325, Rockville, 
Maryland 20852-3804; telephone: 301/496-7057; fax: 301/402-0220. A 
signed Confidential Disclosure Agreement will be required to receive 
copies of the patent applications.

Tissue Microosmometer

Ferenc Horkay, Peter J. Basser, Adam Berman (NICHD)
DHHS Reference No. E-280-2002/0 filed Aug. 07, 2002
Licensing Contact: Dale Berkley; 301/435-5019; [email protected]

    This new tissue microosmometer allows for the quantification of 
minor changes in the swelling properties of different tissues (e.g. 
cartilage) using very small amounts of tissue, and can be used as a 
potential diagnostic technique to detect early stages of cell or tissue 
injury such as cartilage degeneration or disorder. Varying the vapor 
pressure in the environment of the device induces controlled changes in 
the osmotic pressure of a tissue layer attached to the surface of a 
flat quartz crystal. Variation in the swelling degree is measured with 
high sensitivity and reliability by monitoring the change in resonance 
frequency of the quartz crystal. The device requires less than one 
microgram of sample, and the small tissue sample allows for an 
extremely fast response time. The device is well suited to the study of 
expensive or limited availability biological or macromolecular samples.

Method for Convection Enhanced Delivery of Therapeutic Agents

Edward H. Oldfield (NINDS)
DHHS Reference No. E-202-2002/0 filed Sep. 24, 2002
Licensing Contact: Dale Berkley; 301/435-5019; [email protected]

    The invention is a method for monitoring the spatial distribution 
of therapeutic substances by MRI or CT that have been administered to 
tissue using convection-enhanced delivery, a technique that is the 
subject of NIH-owned U.S. Patent No. 5,720,720. In one embodiment, the 
tracer is a molecule,

[[Page 68146]]

detectable by MRI or CT, which functions as a surrogate for the motion 
of the therapeutic agent through the solid tissue. In other particular 
embodiments, the tracer is the therapeutic agent conjugated to an 
imaging moiety. The method of this invention uses non-toxic 
macromolecular MRI contrast agents comprised of chelated Gd(III). In 
particular, the surrogate tracer used in this invention is a serum 
albumin conjugated with either a gadolinium chelate of 2-(p-
isothiocyanotobenzyl)-6-methyldiethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid or 
with iopanoic acid. These macromolecular imaging agents have clearance 
properties that mimic the pharmacokinetic properties of co-
administrated drugs, so as to be useful in quantifying the range and 
dosage level of therapeutic drugs using MR imaging.

Refinement of Isointensity Surfaces

Peter Yim (CC)
DHHS Reference No. E-078-2002/0 filed Feb 22, 2002
Licensing Contact: Dale Berkley; 301/435-5019; [email protected]

    The invention is a method for reconstructing arterial geometry from 
magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) using isosurfaces deformed to 
conform to the boundaries of objects in the image with minimal a priori 
assumptions of object shape. The method determines the degree of 
stenosis in digital phantoms with an accuracy of at least 10%. This 
method, unlike previous techniques, does not require the imposition of 
a pre-defined surface mesh onto the image or user interaction for 
definition of the vessel axes. Here, the deformable model surface mesh 
is generated by the isosurface algorithm. Accordingly, the new method 
requires minimal user interaction and provides highly accurate results 
when applied to the evaluation of vascular stenoses. The methodology 
may also be applicable for reconstruction of the geometry of vascular 
aneurysms from MRA. Other potential applications include precision 
surface reconstruction of vascular surfaces from computed tomographic 
angiography (CTA) and precision reconstruction of the surface of the 
colon from computed tomography (CT).

Automated Centerline Detection Algorithm for Colon-Like 3D Surfaces

Gheorghe Iordanescu (CC), Ronald Summers (CC), Juan Cebral
DHHS Reference No. E-311-2001 filed Dec. 27, 2001
Licensing Contact: Dale Berkley; 301/435-5019; [email protected]

    The invention is a method for obtaining the centerline of a colon-
like surface, which is an important tool for virtual colonoscopy. The 
invention uses only three steps: (1) Computing a shrunken version of 
the colon surface (2) modeling the shrunken colon by an ordered group 
of 3D points and (3) selecting equally distanced planes to define equal 
length segments along the centerline. The centerline is a vital 
parameter for any virtual colonoscopy technique as it defines a 
navigation path along which the imaging proceeds and it provides a 
natural coordinate system for describing polyp detections. A virtual 
colonoscopy method is described and claimed in NIH-owned U.S. Patent 
No. 6,246,784. However, detecting the centerline of the colon is a 
challenging problem for which a number of approaches have been 
developed. Most of these approaches are not fully automatic, are slow 
and require the original CT images. The method of this invention is 
fully automatic, relatively quick and uses only the 3D surface rather 
than the original CT images.

Discovery of Novel Inhibitors of HIV-1 Integrase That Can Be Used for 
the Treatment of Retroviral Infection Including AIDS

Terrence R. Burke, Jr., Xuechen Zhang, Godwin C. G. Pais, Christophe 
Marchand, Evguenia Svarovskaia, Vinay K. Pathak, and Yves Pommier (NCI)
DHHS Reference No. E-317-2001/0 filed Dec. 07, 2001
Licensing Contact: Sally Hu; 301/435-5606; [email protected]

    This invention provides azido group-containing diketo acids that 
can inhibit HIV-1 integrase in vitro efficiently while being highly 
selective for the strand transfer step of the integration reaction. 
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and other retroviruses require three 
viral enzymes for replication: Reverse transcriptase, protease and 
integrase. The prognosis of AIDS has been improved recently by the 
discovery and application of reverse transcriptase and protease 
inhibitors. However, a significant fraction of patients fail to respond 
to such treatments and viral resistance remains a major problem. 
Furthermore, anti-AIDS combinations are often not well tolerated. Thus, 
HIV integrase is a rational target for AIDS therapy because genetic 
studies demonstrated that the enzyme is essential for viral replication 
while being without a cellular equivalent. Therefore, specific 
integrase inhibitors should be effective and devoid of toxicity. Since 
this invention involves the discovery of novel HIV-1 integrase 
inhibitors that are derived from diketo acids with a different anti-HIV 
mechanism from that of reverse transcriptase and protease inhibitors, 
these azide group-containing compounds may represent potential new 
therapeutics for treatment of retroviral infections, including AIDS.

    Dated: November 4, 2002.
Jack Spiegel,
Director, Division of Technology, Development and Transfer, Office of 
Technology Transfer, National Institutes of Health.
[FR Doc. 02-28537 Filed 11-7-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4140-01-P