The Heart Institute of Spokane and its researchers have filed their first patent application based on basic science research conducted there.


The research, which over the past year or so has been led by Dr. Katherine Tuttle, the Heart Institutes director of research, has the potential to provide new insights into the mechanisms that cause diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease, Tuttle says.


Now, with an investment from BioGenetic Ventures Inc., of Spokane, Tuttle can advance her research. BioGenetic Ventures, a young Spokane company that invests in the commercialization of emerging scientific research, said in May that it would invest $1 million at the Heart Institute over the next three years. The study Tuttle is leading and one involving gene-therapy, which is being conducted by Dr. William A. Dittman Jr., director of hematology at Sacred Heart Medical Center, are the first two studies to be funded by BioGenetic Ventures. (See related article on page B1.)


The expected patent from Tuttles research, an application for which was filed in October, would involve the effects of amino acids (the building blocks of protein) on mesangial cells, which are found in small blood vessels in the kidneys, Tuttle says.


Through her research, Tuttle has shown that amino acids added to mesangial cells, which are integral players in the kidneys of people who suffer from diabetes, cause certain genes to express, or produce, proteins or to decrease their expression of proteins. Tuttle explains that gene expression is a normal function that takes place in the body, but when gene expression goes awry, thats when disease occurs. So, by studying gene expression, researchers will be able to understand the mechanisms of disease better, which then could lead to improved treatments, she says.


When you understand what goes wrong, you then have the rationale for developing a treatment, Tuttle says.


Now, Tuttle, along with researchers from BioGenetic Ventures, plans to begin testing other types of cells and exploring the gene expression of thousands of genes throughout the body.


This has big potential, Tuttle says. We can now move from (research of) diabetes into renal (kidney) and cardiovascular disease.


Jeffrey Stewart, director of science and intellectual property at BioGenetic Ventures, says the company plans to buy a machine called a microarray, which will be housed in a laboratory at the Heart Institute. The machine will allow BioGenetic Ventures to work with Tuttle to measure gene expression in thousands of genes at a time, he says.


The use of the microarray is expected to expand and increase greatly the rate of discovery of gene expression, say both Stewart and Tuttle. Stewart adds that the continued research also likely will result in several more patents of intellectual property.


Our goal is to bring this to the commercialization stage, Stewart says. He says that BioGenetic Ventures likely would commercialize the project in one of two ways. The company either would sell the entire gene screening project to another biotechnology company and allow it to continue the work, or as researchers identify various target genes, it could sell those to pharmaceutical companies that would use the genes to test the effectiveness of medications, Stewart says.


Tuttles research also is spurring additional studies at the Heart Institute. She says that she and other researchers now want to study the genes theyve already identified to understand better the consequences of the gene expression.


In all, Tuttle expects BioGenetic Ventures to invest about $700,000 over the next three years in her multifaceted research.


Under an arrangement that BioGenetic Ventures is finalizing with the Heart Institute, intellectual property that results from Tuttles study could be licensed to BioGenetic Ventures, with royalties flowing back to the Heart Institute, BioGenetic Ventures, and Tuttle.