[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 239 (Tuesday, December 14, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 77885-77887]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-31319]


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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 an agency 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.

Software System for Quantitative Assessment of Vasculature in Three 
Dimensional Images

    Description of Invention:
    This invention offered for licensing and further development is a 
software system that provides the capability of

[[Page 77886]]

efficiently extracting, visualizing and quantifying three dimensional 
vascular networks from medical and basic research images. Deregulation 
of angiogenesis plays a major role in a number of human diseases, most 
notably cancer. A substantial increase in the research effort in this 
field over the past decade has deepened the understanding of the 
angiogenic process. However, the lack of methods and software to 
quantitatively assess vasculature in patients has considerably hampered 
the ability to directly study the angiogenesis process, as well as to 
discover and develop new therapeutics to modulate angiogenesis. The 
present invention provides new semi-automated computer algorithms, 
statistical methods and user friendly visualization tools for rapid and 
intuitive quantitative evaluation of vasculature in three dimensional 
data sets obtained through non-invasive imaging techniques such as MRI, 
CT-Scans, confocal microscopy, microCT, etc. The methods and software 
embodied in this invention provide a three dimensional quantitative 
capability in the clinic as a vascular diagnostic tool and in basic 
research projects to evaluate changes in vascular network systems.
    Applications:
     Medical research for studying angiogenesis and tumor 
vasculature.
     Potential applications in clinical studies and 
diagnostics.
     Discovery and development of anti-angiogenesis agents with 
application to cancer.
     Possible application to diseases other than cancer, such 
as those related to the lymphatic system, the pulmonary airway, the 
kidney filtration system.
    Development Status:
     The invention is fully developed.
     The software will be readily available if so requested.
    Inventors: Enrique Zudaire, Christopher Kurcz, Yanling Liu (NCI).
    Patent Status: HHS Reference No. E-261-2010/0--Software. Patent 
protection is not being pursued for this technology.
    Licensing Status: Available for licensing.
    Licensing Contacts:
     Uri Reichman, PhD, MBA; 301-435-4616; [email protected].
     Michael Shmilovich, Esq.; 301-435-5019; 
[email protected].

Compounds That Treat Malaria and Prevent Malaria Transmission

    Technology Summary: The invention offered for licensing relates to 
therapeutic compounds and related pharmaceutical compositions that can 
be used in the prevention and treatment of malaria infection. More 
specifically, the invention is drawn to compounds that can kill malaria 
gametocytes to block malaria transmission and treat malaria infection 
in the non-erthtrocytic stages, as well as therapeutic uses of these 
molecules to prevent or slow the transmission of plasmodium organisms 
between mammals and eliminate or prevent infection in mammal. 
Furthermore, the compounds of the invention are tricyclic compounds 
where the side rings may be 5-7 membered rings (preferably 6-membered), 
and the center ring may be 6-8 membered ring (preferably 7-membered). 
Also preferable structures are ones in which the side rings are aryl 
rings while the center ring is cycloalkyl ring. The compounds of the 
invention have been identified by integrating quantitative high-
throughput screening (qHTS) with genetic mapping and in vivo oocyst 
formation assay.
    Applications: Prevention and treatment of malaria infections.
    Inventors: Xin-zhuan Su and Jing Yuan (NIAID).
    Patent Status: International Patent Application No. PCT/US2010/
047019 filed August 27, 2010. Priority Application 61/237,417 filed 
August 27, 2009. (HHS Reference No. E-283-2009).
    Licensing Status: Available for licensing.
    Licensing Contacts:
     Uri Reichman, PhD, MBA; 301-435-4616; [email protected].
     Michael Shmilovich, Esq.; 301-435-5019; 
[email protected].

A Universal Antigen Delivery Platform for Enhanced Immune Response

    Description of Invention: The present invention relates to use of 
the rotavirus NSP2 octamer as a universal antigen delivery platform for 
presenting a high density of neutralizing epitopes to the immune 
system, a strategy for boosting antigen immunogenicity. This 
application is advanced by the well-defined structural and biochemical 
properties of the octamer, its high stability at a broad range of pH, 
temperature and ionic stability, and its ease of purification (one 
step) under nondenaturing conditions. Long conformationally-dependent 
antigens are readily mounted onto the platform by fusion to the C-
terminus of NSP2, a region of the NSP2 protein positioned on the 
exposed surface of the octamer. The platform can be expressed in and 
purified from prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems.
    This technology can be used for rapid production of subunit 
vaccines against a wide range of infectious agents. Additional uses of 
the technology include the generation of delivery platforms with 
mounted short peptide antigens for use in cancer immunotherapy, 
production of specific antisera to conformationally and 
nonconformationally-dependent antigens for research purposes, and 
development of epitope targets and short peptide-antigen presentation 
platforms for diagnostic assays.
    Applications:
     Vaccines against pathogens.
     Cancer vaccines.
     Antigen-specific antisera.
     Multivalent targets in diagnostic assays.
    Advantages:
     Octameric platform is stable, efficiently expressed, and 
easily purified by a single step method.
     Enables the display of multivalent conformation-dependent 
epitopes.
     Effective platform for short peptides as well as long 
polypeptides.
    Development Status: Proof-of-concept experiments have shown that 
the octamer mounted with short peptides or long multivalent 
polypeptides retains its structural and biophysical features and is 
highly effective in presenting foreign antigens to the immune system. 
Ease of purification and final protein yields of the short or long 
peptide antigen-mounted NSP2 octamers were comparable suggesting that 
the platform accommodates a large range of antigen sizes. The NSP2-
platform also served as an adjuvant, significantly enhancing immunity 
of the mounted peptide.
    Inventors: John T. Patton (NIAID); Zenobia F. Taraporewala (NIAID).
    Relevant Publications:
    1. P Schuck et al. Rotavirus nonstructural protein NSP2 self-
assembles into octamers that undergo ligand-induced conformational 
changes. J Biol Chem. 2001 Mar 30;276(13):9679-9687. [PubMed: 11121414]
    2. H Jayaram et al. Rotavirus protein involved in genome 
replication and packaging exhibits a HIT-like fold. Nature. 2002 May 
16;417(6886):311-315. [PubMed: 12015608]
    3. Z Taraporewala et al. Rotavirus NSP2 octamer as an epitope-
mounting platform. Abstract, 23rd Annual Meeting of the American 
Society for Virology, 2004.
    4. K Kearney et al. Cell-line-induced mutation of the rotavirus 
genome alters expression of an IRF3-interacting protein. EMBO J. 2004 
Oct 13;23(20):4072-4081. [PubMed: 15372078]
    Patent Status: U.S. Patent Application No. 11/293,654 filed 02 Dec 
2005 (HHS Reference No. E-322-2004/0-US-02).
    Licensing Status: Available for licensing.

[[Page 77887]]

    Licensing Contact: Kevin W. Chang, PhD; 301-435-5018; 
[email protected].

    Dated: December 1, 2010.
Richard U. Rodriguez,
Director, Division of Technology Development and Transfer, Office of 
Technology Transfer, National Institutes of Health.
[FR Doc. 2010-31319 Filed 12-13-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4140-01-P