From CYTO report -
Proteomics: AxCell Biosciences Corporation
The objective of AxCell Bioscience, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cytogen, is to chart the protein signaling pathways in the human proteome as a means of discovering new drug targets.
-- AxCell Biosciences has grown significantly in the first half of 2000,
increasing from six employees in December, when it moved to a new
state-of-the-art facility, to 22 people at present. We expect to
continue to add employees in order to accelerate building of our
proprietary protein interaction database.
-- AxCell remains on schedule to reach our target for automation --
200,000 interactions per month -- by the end of summer. We are
currently considering renting additional laboratory space to further
expand AxCell's research operations.
-- AxCell remains on track to add over one million interactions to its
database by the end of the year and to begin marketing its
InterFunctional Proteomics Database in early 2001 via its partner,
InforMax. Using the InforMax software and our own bioinformatic
filters and algorithms, AxCell is making progress not only in
cataloging protein/protein interactions, but in constructing pathways
with these data.
-- In the first half of the year, our protein mapping and drug discovery
technology was awarded patents in the U.S., Japan and Australia. We
are continuing to invest resources to build our patent portfolio of
novel signaling proteins. Similarly, we are seeking intellectual
property protection for proprietary algorithms that allow us to build
protein signaling pathways and to identify likely drug targets within
these newly discovered pathways.
-- By the end of the year, AxCell expects to announce that they have
completely characterized an entire domain family and all of the
ligands to which the family members bind. Within two to four years,
AxCell expects to have measured a significant proportion of the
protein signaling interactions in human cells.
-- AxCell's research goes beyond measuring protein interactions in a high-
throughput system. In parallel, AxCell has adopted a disease-based
approach to identifying specific novel drug targets. In this regard,
AxCell recently agreed to collaborate with the Institute for Systems
Biology, headed by Dr. Leroy Hood, one of the founding fathers of the
Human Genome Project. The initial target is to work together to chart
the protein-interaction changes in prostate cells that have become
cancerous. Pinpointing such aberrations is fundamental to identifying
targets for new anti-cancer drugs. The collaboration also envisions
applying the systems pathway approach to other forms of cancer and to
other diseases, such as immune disorders. |
