A Predictive Model for Nuclear Transfer Reprogramming

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Infigen will use SBIR grant support to develop a model for evaluating the molecular events associated with cellular reprogramming that enables early determination of a cell's probability of developing into a desired organism or tissue. No such model has been reported to date, impeding rational approaches to development of emerging health care applications dependent upon proper reprogramming, such as cell based therapeutics and nuclear transfer technologies. Infigen's proposed model will focus on bovine and pig embryos that are candidates for nuclear transfer and will provide the ability to systematically classify the cells of such embryos for developmental competence--the ability to develop to live birth. However, the model will be designed for applications to all cell types, providing a means to assess the ability of cells to dedifferentiate and re-differentiate into specific desired cell types and tissues. Phase I studies will identify genes reflecting reprogramming competence and confirm that donor cell lines of known classes can be distinguished based on protein expression patterns. Results from these studies will be used in Phase II to develop a donor cell line reprogramming "chip" that can predict the competence of a donor cell line to be reprogrammed. The technology will be commercialized through applications in Infigen's own proprietary nuclear transfer cloning technologies for biopharmaceutical production, xenotransplantation, and animal research models, and through strategic alliances with firms developing various applications that can take advantage of the new platform, particularly cell-based therapeutics.