TREVIGEN, INC. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: NIEHS

Description

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant The objective of this application is to develop an accurate high throughput genotoxicity screening system with high specificity and accuracy using our established and well validated toxicogenomic biomarker in cultured human cells Genotoxicity represented by chromosome damage and mutations in DNA is considered to be the hallmark of carcinogenic risk The standard genotoxicity assays especially in the case of in vitro chromosome aberration assays have a high false positive rate which results in costly and time consuming follow up assays that increase the cost of drug development and chemical safety assessment Hence gaining insight into genotoxic mechanisms and distinguishing those andquot falseandquot positive genotoxicity findings caused by nongenotoxic mechanisms is of great value so a simple reliable technology proposed here would be sought after by pharmaceutical and chemical companies Our biomarker TGx is capable of recognizing incorrectly identified compounds The specificity of genotoxicity prediction by TGx the intra and inter laboratory reproducibility and the reproducibility on different technical platforms have been carefully validated by us and by a second laboratory in follow up studies Our TGx biomarker recently was incorporated into the Genes panel for the Tox Phase III high throughput transcriptomics project In the Phase I feasibility project we propose to develop a commercially viable and efficient high throughput genotoxicity screening system using TGx which has shown remarkable specificity and robustness for genotoxicity prediction Our technical approach will employ direct digital counting technology to achieve high levels of precision linearity and reproducibility in measuring the expression levels of genes in TGx simultaneously The proposed approach will provide significant benefits in comparison to the current genotoxicity battery and is poised to be commercially successful PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Genotoxicity testing is an essential component of the safety assessment paradigm required by regulatory agencies world wide for drug candidates industrial chemicals and environmental pollutants However the current genotoxicity testing battery features high incidence of false positive finding for in vitro chromosome damage assays that provides a challenge to both industry and regulatory agencies This proposal addresses the high Incidence of false positive findings by applying the genomic biomarker TGx which was identified by the Fornace laboratory and that is capable of identifying relevant genotoxic responses The Phase I proposal will primarily be a feasibility and proof of principle project for developing a high throughput TGx based screening service and later a genotoxicity kit The successful completion of this project will enable a broad application of the first toxicogenomics assay for genotoxicity i e DNA damage assessment in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry Furthermore the automated screening system is expected to improve drug discovery and risk assessment of industrial chemicals