生物芯片、生物传感器和生物信息学

近年来,在生物技术和医学研究领域涌现出了许多新技术平台,其中就包括生物芯片技术和生物传感器技术。生物芯片和生物传感器的构建都必须以生物信息学为基础,而两种技术平台应用所得出的数据和结果又反过来大大丰富和充实了生物信息学本身。本分析概述了生物芯片和生物传感器两种技术平台以及生物信息学,对三之间的相互关系进行了讨论。     

Intellectual property in natural sciences

The way from scientific finding through invention to production line and finally to the consument is long and expensive and patent should be taken into account. This is evident because the investment connected with the new application needs clear definition of intellectual property rights. Independently what we personally think about patenting in nature sciences--this is a common practice around the world. The positive and negative parameters of patenting are focus on biotechnology. The development of biotechnology is a cumulative effect of co-operation of several disciplines: biology, biochemistry, chemistry, engineering, genetics, medicines and pharmacy and many more. Between not cited here is law and consequently the needs of cooperation between researchers and lawyers. There are several barriers in this co-operation, for example: nomenclature as well as the way of thinking. These borders could be pass only with intercommunication and cross-understanding. The dialog and transfer of knowledge is a must for understanding the nomenclature, terminology of nature by lawyers and by researchers in case of law. Polish legislation concerning intellectually rights is regulated by the law "Prawo w?asno?ci przemys?owej" (30 June, 2000; Dz. U. 2003, Nr 119, pos. 1117, with later amendments). This legislation is related to European Union directives and Munich Convention. Accordingly patenting of product and process is possible in Poland. However, the procedure is time and money consuming, particularly in the case of patent submission in several countries. Amendment of the Polish law to biotechnology made possible patenting of living organism and their parts. It is worth to stress that patented inventions can be used free of charge for research and teaching.     

Antibody-drug conjugates: Intellectual property considerations

Antibody-drug conjugates are highly complex entities that combine an antibody, a linker and a toxin. This complexity makes them demanding both technically and from a regulatory point of view, and difficult to deal with in their patent aspects. This article discusses different issues of patent protection and freedom to operate with regard to this promising new class of drugs.     

Antibody-drug conjugates: Intellectual property considerations

Antibody-drug conjugates are highly complex entities that combine an antibody, a linker and a toxin. This complexity makes them demanding both technically and from a regulatory point of view, and difficult to deal with in their patent aspects. This article discusses different issues of patent protection and freedom to operate with regard to this promising new class of drugs.     

Intellectual property protection for plant-related inventions in Europe

The economic and political issues that accompany the commercial growing of genetically modified crops, as well as the risk of transgene spread, are often top of the agenda for debate. But one important aspect is frequently overlooked--the intellectual property protection of plant-related inventions. What protection does European patent law afford to such inventions, how does it compare with the United States law and what are the consequences of the differences between them?     

Intellectual property, genetically modified crops and bioethics

The implementation of a new technology is almost always surrounded by a debate on the moral and social implications that may arise. The debate with regard to genetically modified (GM) crops has been one of the longest and most controversial. However, one area of the debate that receives less attention is the role that intellectual property can play. The introduction of an effective and yet appropriate intellectual property system addressing society's particular needs can eliminate some of these issues. This paper looks at whether the situation in Europe is meeting our current needs and also addresses the role intellectual property can play in the debate over the introduction of GM crops in developing countries.     

Intellectual property issues of immune checkpoint inhibitors

Immune checkpoint inhibitors are drugs that interfere with tumor escape responses. Some members of this class are already approved, and expected to be blockbusters in the future. Many companies have developed patent activities in this field. This article focuses on the patent landscape, and discusses key players and cases related to immune checkpoint inhibitors.     

Intellectual property protection of plant biotechnology inventions

The intellectual property protection of biotechnology-related subject matter is undergoing significant change and several countries have revised their legislation and/or patent practice as a result of challenges from industry and members of the public. Plant-related subject matter can be protected using plant variety protection, utility patents or, in the USA, by plant patent. Although easier to obtain than a utility patent, plant variety protection does not provide the same scope of protection. Protecting a plant using a utility patent is permitted only in countries that allow the patenting of higher life forms and requires a higher degree of experimental support than is required for plant variety protection, although the scope of protection is being steadily reduced.     

Consensus strategy in genes prioritization and combined bioinformatics analysis for preeclampsia pathogenesis

Background

Preeclampsia is a multifactorial disease with unknown pathogenesis. Even when recent studies explored this disease using several bioinformatics tools, the main objective was not directed to pathogenesis. Additionally, consensus prioritization was proved to be highly efficient in the recognition of genes-disease association. However, not information is available about the consensus ability to early recognize genes directly involved in pathogenesis. Therefore our aim in this study is to apply several theoretical approaches to explore preeclampsia; specifically those genes directly involved in the pathogenesis.

Methods

We firstly evaluated the consensus between 12 prioritization strategies to early recognize pathogenic genes related to preeclampsia. A communality analysis in the protein-protein interaction network of previously selected genes was done including further enrichment analysis. The enrichment analysis includes metabolic pathways as well as gene ontology. Microarray data was also collected and used in order to confirm our results or as a strategy to weight the previously enriched pathways.

Results

The consensus prioritized gene list was rationally filtered to 476 genes using several criteria. The communality analysis showed an enrichment of communities connected with VEGF-signaling pathway. This pathway is also enriched considering the microarray data. Our result point to VEGF, FLT1 and KDR as relevant pathogenic genes, as well as those connected with NO metabolism.

Conclusion

Our results revealed that consensus strategy improve the detection and initial enrichment of pathogenic genes, at least in preeclampsia condition. Moreover the combination of the first percent of the prioritized genes with protein-protein interaction network followed by communality analysis reduces the gene space. This approach actually identifies well known genes related with pathogenesis. However, genes like HSP90, PAK2, CD247 and others included in the first 1% of the prioritized list need to be further explored in preeclampsia pathogenesis through experimental approaches.

     

Magnetoresistive-based biosensors and biochips

Over the past five years, magnetoelectronics has emerged as a promising new platform technology for biosensor and biochip development. The techniques are based on the detection of the magnetic fringe field of a magnetically labeled biomolecule interacting with a complementary biomolecule bound to a magnetic-field sensor. Magnetoresistive-based sensors, conventionally used as read heads in hard disk drives, have been used in combination with biologically functionalized magnetic labels to demonstrate the detection of molecular recognition. Real-world bio-applications are now being investigated, enabling tailored device design, based on sensor and label characteristics. This detection platform provides a robust, inexpensive sensing technique with high sensitivity and considerable scope for quantitative signal data, enabling magnetoresistive biochips to meet specific diagnostic needs that are not met by existing technologies.     

Intellectual property law: a primer for scientists

“Intellectual property” (IP) is a generic legal term for patents, copyrights, and trademarks, which provide legal rights to protect ideas, the expression of ideas, and the inventors and creators of such ideas. A patent provides legal protection for a new invention, an application of a new idea, discovery, or concept that is useful. Copyright provides legal protection from copying for any creative work, as well as business and scientific publications, computer software, and compilations of information. A trademark provides rights to use symbols, particular words, logos, or other markings that indicate the source of a product or service. A further method of benefiting from an invention is simply to keep it secret, rather than to disclose it—a “trade secret.” IP impinges on almost everything scientists do. As scientists are paid to come up with ideas and aspire to patent and/or publish their work, the protection of ideas and of written works especially should be of interest and concern to all.     

Multienzyme catalysis in microfluidic biochips

The attachment of enzymes to glass microfluidic channels has been achieved using a highly reactive poly(maleic anhydride-alt-alpha-olefin) (PMA)-based coating that is supplied to the microchannel in a toluene solution. The PMA reacts with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane groups linked to the glass surface to form a matrix that enables additional maleic anhydride groups to react with free amino groups on enzymes to give a mixed covalent-noncovalent immobilization support. Using a simple T-channel microfluidic design, with reaction channel dimensions of 200 microm wide (at the center), 15 microm deep, and 30 mm long giving a reaction volume of 90 nL, soybean peroxidase (SBP) was attached at an amount up to 0.6 microg/channel. SBP-catalyzed oxidation of p-cresol was performed in aqueous buffer (with 20% [v/v], dimethylformamide) containing H(2)O(2), with microfluidic transport enabled by electroosmotic flow (EOF). Michaelis-Menten kinetics were obtained with K(m) and V(max) values of 0.98 mM and 0.21 micromol H(2)O(2) converted/mg SBP per minute, respectively. These values are nearly identical to nonimmobilized SBP kinetics in aqueous-DMF solutions in 20-microL volumes in 384-well plates and 5-mL reaction volumes in 20-mL scintillation vials. These results indicate that SBP displays intrinsically native activity even in the immobilized form at the microscale, and further attests to the mild immobilization conditions afforded by PMA. Bienzymic and trienzymic reactions were also performed in the microfluidic biochip. Specifically, a combined Candida antarctica lipase B-SBP bienzymic system was used to convert tolyl acetate into poly(p-cresol), and an invertase-glucose oxidase SBP trienzymic system was used to take sucrose and generate H(2)O(2) for SBP-catalyzed synthesis of poly(p-cresol).     

A bioinformatics filtering strategy for identifying radiation response biomarker candidates

The number of biomarker candidates is often much larger than the number of clinical patient data points available, which motivates the use of a rational candidate variable filtering methodology. The goal of this paper is to apply such a bioinformatics filtering process to isolate a modest number (<10) of key interacting genes and their associated single nucleotide polymorphisms involved in radiation response, and to ultimately serve as a basis for using clinical datasets to identify new biomarkers. In step 1, we surveyed the literature on genetic and protein correlates to radiation response, in vivo or in vitro, across cellular, animal, and human studies. In step 2, we analyzed two publicly available microarray datasets and identified genes in which mRNA expression changed in response to radiation. Combining results from Step 1 and Step 2, we identified 20 genes that were common to all three sources. As a final step, a curated database of protein interactions was used to generate the most statistically reliable protein interaction network among any subset of the 20 genes resulting from Steps 1 and 2, resulting in identification of a small, tightly interacting network with 7 out of 20 input genes. We further ranked the genes in terms of likely importance, based on their location within the network using a graph-based scoring function. The resulting core interacting network provides an attractive set of genes likely to be important to radiation response.     

Intellectual property protection: Strategies for future antibody inventions

In the last decade, therapeutic antibodies have become one of the most commercially successful classes of biopharmaceutic drugs. Major drug manufacturers who have successfully managed to occupy this new market, as well as biotechnology firms, some of which have experienced a quick growth and are now on par with the former, owe part of their success to suitable intellectual property (IP) strategies. This article provides an overview of the current thinking on antibody-related patents, and discusses strategies for protecting the antibody products of the future.Key words: antibody, mimetics, patent, inventive, intellectual property     

战略性微生物资源知识产权现状研究及发展对策

微生物作为全世界分布最广且拥有量最多的生物资源,其应用已涉及到诸多领域并展现出了巨大的经济价值和社会价值。因此研究微生物及其知识产权(intellectual property rights,IPR)全产业链的现状和发展,对于我们如何全新地认知微生物,如何挖掘微生物资源以及发挥微生物作为产业最重要部分的作用具有重要的意义。我国已形成了较为完备的微生物相关专利保护体系,已形成了基于微生物的全产业链生态发展闭环格局。本文通过以微生物专利构成实质技术转移、许可和质押相关大数据分析,通过挖掘利用各种微生物资源,从战略高度探索国家开放遗传资源的大数据,围绕微生物功能性活性成分、菌株(群)基因大数据,基于微生物功能代谢产物、基因组进行数据分析、预警和专利布局,做好微生物资源IPR现状研究及发展对策。最终形成以产业为依托,战略性资源作为引导,IPR助推微生物全产业链中核心技术引擎的格局,进而实现微生物战略资源产业集群发展。