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N e w s C anat .I [ ................... , ii A major new initiative 'to define th| molecular anatomy of tumour cellsl launched by the US National Cance (NCI; Bethesda, MD, USA). The C Genome Anatomy Project (CGAP) speed the discovery of new diagnos defining the genes and proteins resl; cancer development. The initial pro an index of all the genes expressed cancers, which will be publicly avai Intemet, and new technologies for molecular analysis of tumour specu CGAP is part of NCI's research: improve cancer diagnosis. Cancer ii fundamentally a genetic disease, ani clinicians of the future will probe proteins in a tumour cell for signs o the disease will progress, whether i! spread and what treatments it migh! NCI's Cancer Diagnostics Branch, i the infrastructure, in terms of both s hardware, for this new approach to i molecular analysis of cancer. constructing cDNA libraries fi throughput sequencing of the I tumours of the breast, colon, t ~ ovary. Taube explains that, eve input will largely be one of co characterizing tissue samples National Cooperative Human' MOLECULAR MEDICINE TODAY, MARCH 1997 Heat- inducible promoters for gene therapy The US National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) and US National Institutes of Health (NIH; both in Bethesda, MD, USA) are seeking collaborators to help develop technologies to control local gene expression using a heat shock protein (hsp) promoter. This project aims to overcome one current limitation of gene therapy: how to control when, where and to what extent exogenous genes are expressed. The NCRR has applied for patents 'claiming' the core technology of using a heat-inducible promoter in combination with local heat, preferably provided by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided focused ultrasound (FUS). It is offering academic and/or commercial organizations opportunities for a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). One of the functions of hsps is to protect organisms against heat-stress; the expression of some hsp genes is affected by changes in temperature. In particular, expression of the gene encoding the heat-inducible hsp70, under control of the hsp70B promoter, shows a strong induction when temperatures in the cell increase by only a few degrees. Researchers led by Chrit Moonen who, until recently, worked at the In vivo NMR Research Center at the NIH, aim to combine this promoter switch with target genes to be introduced in vivo. The construct would have to be delivered to the target cells by a vector, but the target gene would not be expressed in the target site until the temperature was raised locally. The extent to which the gene is expressed could be controlled by the amount the temperature is increased and the time period during which FUS is applied. Recent developments with MRI-guided FUS should allow precise targeting of the locations where the gene of interest is to be expressed. According to Moonen, because FUS can be guided with anatomical and temperature images generated by MILl, it is possible to check whether m 94 Copyright ©1997Elsevier Science Ltd.All rightsreserved.1357- 4310/97/$17.00
