Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080220449 | Biomarkers and assays for Alzheimer's disease - Methods, compositions and systems are provided for diagnosing, stratifying, or monitoring the progression or regression of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the methods, compositions and systems comprise detecting in a sample a level of at least one AD biomarker, the AD biomarker comprising at least phosphorylated tau pT217, soluble tau oligomer, tau-amyloid-beta 1-42 complex, a fragment thereof or a combination thereof and comparing the level from the sample to a reference level of phosphorylated tau pT217, soluble tau oligomer, and/or tau-amyloid-beta 1-42 complex to diagnose or stratify or monitor the progression or regression of AD. In various embodiments, diagnostic assay and screening kits are provided. In various embodiments, the assay and kits provided can monitor the therapeutic effect of a drug and/or AD treatment. In various embodiments, the assay can be used to screen for drugs that disrupt the AD biomarker(s) | 09-11-2008 |
20110312059 | TAU PROTEASE COMPOSITIONS AND METHODS - Tau protein has a causative role in Alzheimer's disease and multiple other neurodegenerative disorders exhibiting tau histopathology collectively termed tauopathies. The primary function of tau protein is to facilitate assembly and maintenance of microtubules in neuronal axons. In the disease process tau protein becomes modified, loses its affinity to microtubules and accumulates in the cell body where it forms aggregates. The large neurofibrillary tangles formed from tau protein assembled into filaments were thought to be the pathological structure of tau. However, more recent work indicates that smaller, soluble oligomeric forms of tau are best associated with neuron loss and memory impairment. A novel and unexpected protease activity has been discovered to be associated with tau in oligomeric but not monomeric structures. Methods have been developed to form and purify tau protease and to assay its activity. Tau protease activity constitutes a totally novel mechanism for tau-mediated neurodegenerative disease by causing tau loss of function, as it cleaves itself, and gain of toxic function as it can cleave other proteins and facilitate cell death through apoptotic and/or senescence pathways. Tau protease presents a novel and unique target for the development of therapeutics that may be achieved by several strategies including by inhibiting the tau oligomer enzymatic activity. | 12-22-2011 |
20120029169 | METHODS AND COMPOSITIONS COMPRISING TAU OLIGOMERS - Tau protein has a causative role in Alzheimer's disease and multiple other neurodegenerative disorders exhibiting tau histopathology collectively termed tauopathies. The primary function of tau protein is to facilitate assembly and maintenance of microtubules in neuronal axons. In the disease process tau protein becomes modified, loses its affinity to microtubules and accumulates in the cell body where it forms aggregates. The large neurofibrillary tangles formed from tau protein assembled into filaments were thought to be the pathological structure of tau. However, more recent work indicates that smaller, soluble oligomeric forms of tau are best associated with neuron loss and memory impairment. Here, novel compositions of tau oligomers and novel mechanisms for tau oligomer nucleation, extension and termination are taught. Methods for producing and purifying these structures for the development of small molecule and immunotherapeutics as well as antibodies for biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases are taught. | 02-02-2012 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090026907 | Hierarchical Sample Storage System - In one embodiment, a cold storage system for biological samples has one or more freezers, each freezer having one or racks, each rack receiving one or more boxes, each box receiving one or more sample containers. In addition to the biological sample, each sample container has a unique passive RFID tag. Control electronics in each box energize reader coils to query individual RFID tags. Control electronics in each rack communicate with and provide power to the control electronics of each corresponding box, and control electronics in each freezer communicate with and provide power to the control electronics of each corresponding rack, and a host computer communicates with the control electronics in each freezer. In each instance, communication and power provisioning is implemented using magnetic inductive coupling. The system is able to determine the identity of each sample container in the system and maintain that information in a database. | 01-29-2009 |
20100302040 | TWO-DIMENSIONAL ANTENNA CONFIGURATION - In one embodiment, an antenna configuration for locating RFID tags has two sets of (mutually orthogonal) elongated reader coils, where each elongated reader coil corresponds to two or more different possible locations of RFID tags, and each possible location is associated with one reader coil in each of the two sets. The identities and locations of RFID tags can be determined by (sequentially) energizing the different sets of reader coils and correlating the recorded responses from RFID tags. In one application, the antenna configuration is used at the box level of a cold storage system for biological samples having one or more freezers, each freezer having one or racks, each rack receiving one or more boxes, each box receiving one or more sample containers, where, in addition to the biological sample, each sample container has a unique passive RFID tag. | 12-02-2010 |
20110199187 | Tracking Biological and Other Samples Using RFID Tags - RFID tags are affixed to vials used to store samples, such as biological samples stored in liquid nitrogen dewars or mechanical freezers. In one set of embodiments, an RFID tag is inserted into a recess at the bottom of a vial and held in place by an insert that engages with vial structure. In another set of embodiments, the RFID tag is retained in the recess by directly engaging with the vial structure and without using a separate insert. Mechanisms for keeping the insert and/or tag in place include tabs that gouge into the vial material, clips that allow the insert/tag to be inserted, but not removed, and holes in the side wall of the vial recess that receive tabs extending from the insert/tag. Tag-insertion techniques enable tags to be affixed to vials either before or after insertion of the sample, thereby enabling retrofitting of existing sample-storing vials with tags. | 08-18-2011 |
20120256806 | Tracking Biological and Other Samples Using RFID Tags - A box mapper has (i) a frame configured to receive a sample box of RFID-tagged sample vials and (ii) a set of antennae configured to read the vial RFID tags of the sample vials to determine the identity and position of each sample vial in the sample box. In one embodiment, the set of antennae include two mutually orthogonal subsets of biphase digit antennae. | 10-11-2012 |
20130076215 | Hierarchical Sample Storage System - In one embodiment, a cold storage system for biological samples has one or more freezers, each freezer having one or racks, each rack receiving one or more boxes, each box receiving one or more sample containers. In addition to the biological sample, each sample container has a unique passive RFID tag. Control electronics in each box energize reader coils to query individual RFID tags. Control electronics in each rack communicate with and provide power to the control electronics of each corresponding box, and control electronics in each freezer communicate with and provide power to the control electronics of each corresponding rack, and a host computer communicates with the control electronics in each freezer. In each instance, communication and power provisioning is implemented using magnetic inductive coupling. The system is able to determine the identity of each sample container in the system and maintain that information in a database. | 03-28-2013 |
20140230472 | Tracking of Sample Boxes Using Energy Harvesting - In one embodiment, a freezer system has one or more shelves, each shelf has shelf electronics and can receive one or more racks, each rack has rack electronics and one or more cells for receiving one or more boxes of samples, each box has one or more RFID tags. Freezer electronics communicate with the outside world and with each set of shelf electronics. Each set of rack electronics communicates wirelessly with the corresponding set of shelf electronics and with the corresponding box RFID tags. Power for the rack electronics is derived from wireless signals from the shelf electronics. The freezer system can detect the presence of racks on shelves and boxes on racks to track the location and the orientation of each received box. | 08-21-2014 |
20140352456 | Guided Retrieval For RFID-Tracked Biological And Other Samples - A storage system for storing samples, such as frozen biological samples in RFID-tagged vials. The storage system has a plurality of lowest-level containers, such as sample boxes; a plurality of mid-level containers, such as shelves and racks; and a highest-level container, such as a mechanical freezer. Each lowest-level container receives a plurality of samples in a corresponding plurality of storage locations, each mid-level container receives two or more lowest-level containers, and the highest-level container receives the two or more mid-level containers. Each mid-level container and each lowest-level container has a corresponding indicator device. A controller sub-system tracks the locations of samples stored in the storage system. When a desired sample is to be retrieved from the storage system, the controller sub-system activates (a) the indicator device corresponding to the mid-level container containing the desired sample and (b) the indicator device corresponding to the lowest-level container containing the desired sample. | 12-04-2014 |