Search for Liver Disease Markers

An alliance has been formed to develop a diagnostic blood test that can measure the progress of liver disease and thereby reduce the need for painful and costly biopsies in patients with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) to identify the need for treatment.

Ciphergen Biosystems, Inc. (Fremont, CA, USA) will collaborate with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB, USA) on the project. Ciphergen will provide its suite of proteomic solutions, designed for biomarker discovery and development of assays, to analyze clinical samples collected at UTMB. This suite includes Ciphergen's Deep Proteome, Pattern Track, and Process and ProteinChip systems. Ciphergen will have a first option to negotiate an exclusive license to discoveries made during the agreement and will take part in UTMB's ongoing research in liver disease.

John R. Petersen, Ph.D., professor of pathology at UTMB, and Ned Snyder, M.D., professor of internal medicine at UTMB, have been studying how HCV infection can damage or destroy the liver. They have been interested in using blood markers that can help determine the amount of liver damage that has been caused by HCV. Doctors agree that such biomarkers would be extremely useful in identifying which patients require treatment and for monitoring patients. To identify biomarkers, Ciphergen will use its ProteinChip array-based surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization--time-of-flight--mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS) system.

"Be using SELDI, we hope to discover new serum biomarkers that can be translated into clinical assays,” said Dr. Petersen. UTMB is a major medical and research center for the study and treatment of infectious diseases such as HCV and HBV.





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