SANTA CRUZ, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Aug. 12, 2002--Moving forward from the expertise the company has built in transposon-based gene delivery, Tosk announced today the development of a new vector that efficiently performs targeted gene delivery when administered to animals.
This new non-viral vector technology can integrate a gene into any known genomic location. Furthermore, this vector can delete, add, or alter targeted genomic DNA sequences. The technology has been tested on multiple small mammals and has the potential to translate into larger mammals including humans for applications such as gene therapy.
"Our experiments are nearly complete and we're preparing to present our data at two upcoming conferences," said Patrick Fogarty, CEO of Tosk, Inc. "It appears that we have been able to take homologous recombination out of cell culture and into the animal while increasing the efficiency by more than a thousand fold and eliminating spurious integrations," he continued.
"This technology enables genetic engineering in a whole organism. The obvious implication of these results is that knock-out and knock-in animals -- both mice and many other kinds of animals -- will become much more accessible for research. In addition, this vector has the potential to overcome many of the barriers to human gene therapy," Fogarty concluded.
Results from these experiments will be presented on both coasts: at the Cambridge HealthTech Institute conference "Genomics on Target" held November 18th through 21st in Boston, Massachusetts, and at the Knowledge Foundation conference "Gene Delivery -- Nonviral Systems and In Vivo Applications" held December 9th and 10th in San Diego, California.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact:
Tosk, Inc., Santa Cruz
Patrick Fogarty, 831/426-6838
info@tosk.com |
