Research by a Yale cell biologist may help in the development of drugs to treat or prevent such diseases as cancer, stroke and dementia.
Exelixis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. recently announced that it has signed an exclusive license for commercial rights to the entire Notch signaling cascade, a key regulatory pathway that has been linked to a number of important diseases. The licensed Notch technology is from Yale, Indiana University Foundation and Imperial Cancer Research Technology. The company also received Notices of Allowance on two Notch patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Based in Cambridge Massachusetts, Exelixis is a functional genomics company engaged in the discovery of optimal drug screening targets and therapeutic proteins. It was founded by three developmental geneticists: Spyridon Artavanis-Tsakonas, professor of cell biology and of biology at Yale; and Gerry Rubin and Corey Goodman, both of the University of California at Berkeley.
"Notch signaling activity is thought to play a central role in the development of both normal and abnormal cell fates in a variety of tissues," explains Professor Artavanis-Tsakonas, who pioneered the molecular dissection of the Notch pathway.
Scientists believe that it may be possible to modulate the development of abnormal cells using the Notch pathway. In fact, the Notch technology licensed by Exelixis covers the entire known Notch pathway including ligands, receptors, cytoplasmic effectors and nuclear proteins. "These filings constitute the intellectual estate on which we're basing an aggressive Notch drug development program," says Dr. George Scanos, the company's president and chief executive officer.
Exelixis uses fruit fly, worm and yeast model organisms to discover novel genes, to define gene function and to place genes in the context of their pathways. The fact that the Notch pathway was originally elucidated in fruit flies -- Drosophilia) -- "further validates Exelixis' approach to drug discovery," says Dr. Scanos. "It appears that the human Notch pathway may be implicated in cancer, stroke and dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, thus demonstrating the ability of fruit flies to provide key information on important potential human therapeutics."