MORGANTOWN, W.Va., July 21, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Protea Biosciences announced today that it has entered into an exclusive license agreement with Johns Hopkins University (JHU) for technology developed in the laboratory of Jennifer Van Eyk, PhD., Professor of Medicine, the Division of Cardiology, Biological Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering. Van Eyk's laboratory team has discovered that proteins bound to human serum albumin, as well as the albumin molecule itself, can yield important new data for improving cardiovascular disease diagnosis and management.
"Their initial investigations have identified at least 35 different proteins that are carried by albumin, several of which have relevance for cardiovascular disease," stated Steve Turner, Protea's CEO. He added, "But this looks like the tip of the iceberg. It appears that there are many more proteins carried by albumin, as well as changes in the albumin itself, that have the potential to yield important new data for identifying specific types of heart disease."
In a recent publication, the Hopkins research team found that the albumin molecule can undergo a specific alteration during myocardial ischemia (MI), a condition in which not enough oxygen is reaching the heart muscle. This has potential clinical significance, because physicians need a more specific and rapid test to determine whether a patient has myocardial ischemia that will improve with medication, or ischemia related to an actual myocardial infarction requiring an emergency procedure. The first hour following the onset of ischemia from a myocardial infarction has been termed "the golden hour." Definitive treatment during that hour usually results in survival; treatment later than that significantly increases the chances of death or long term complications.
The company plans to apply the JHU technology to develop new products for the analysis of the albumin protein, and to create new cardiovascular disease management tools for improving the treatment of myocardial ischemia.
Protea Biosciences develops and commercializes new technology that improves the recovery and analysis of proteins from biological samples, and applies its knowledge to the development of new pharmaceuticals, life science products and services.
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