Patents Assigned to Whitehead Insititute for Biomedical Research
  • Patent number: 9677079
    Abstract: Disclosed are yeast cells expressing a polypeptide comprising a signal sequence and a human amyloid beta protein. Also disclosed are methods of screening yeast cells to identify compounds that prevent or suppress amyloid beta-induced toxicity and genetic suppressors or enhancers of amyloid beta-induced toxicity. Compounds identified by such screens can be used to treat or prevent neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2017
    Assignee: Whitehead Insititute for Biomedical Research
    Inventors: Kent E. S. Matlack, Susan L. Lindquist, Sebastian Treusch
  • Patent number: 8552171
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a Drosophila in vitro system which was used to demonstrate that dsRNA is processed to RNA segments 21-23 nucleotides (nt) in length. Furthermore, when these 21-23 nt fragments are purified and added back to Drosophila extracts, they mediate RNA interference in the absence of long dsRNA. Thus, these 21-23 nt fragments are the sequence-specific mediators of RNA degradation. A molecular signal, which may be their specific length, must be present in these 21-23 nt fragments to recruit cellular factors involved in RNAi. This present invention encompasses these 21-23 nt fragments and their use for specifically inactivating gene function. The use of these fragments (or chemically synthesized oligonucleotides of the same or similar nature) enables the targeting of specific mRNAs for degradation in mammalian cells, where the use of long dsRNAs to elicit RNAi is usually not practical, presumably because of the deleterious effects of the interferon response.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2013
    Assignees: University of Massachusetts, Whitehead Insititute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Föderung der Wissenschaften E.V.
    Inventors: Thomas Tuschl, Phillip D. Zamore, Phillip A. Sharp, David P. Bartel