ROCHESTER, MINN., 23 February 2016 – New treatments and diagnostics for Alzheimer’s and cancer dominate the 2016 research awards recently announced by the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics. The state-supported funding was distributed among seven research teams, based on competitive applications. Each team represents researchers from Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota.

“These are seed grants, aimed at providing innovative researchers the means to get a scientific project off the ground and on the way toward a possible new treatment,” says Eric Wieben, Ph.D., of Mayo Clinic, program co-director for the Minnesota Partnership.

“I’m pleased that we are entering our second decade of scientific progress with so many strong projects that could potentially change how medicine is practiced,” says Tucker LeBien, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota, program co-director.
The seven grants totaled just over $6.5 million.

Characterization of Anti-Tumor Immune Responses following Oncolytic therapy in Spontaneous Cancer
In this study researchers will use engineered Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) as a powerful new immunotherapy for osteosarcoma. The study patients will be dogs already stricken with osteosarcoma that, like humans, often die due to progressive disease and metastasis. Researchers will carry out an in-depth analysis to understand how and when VSV therapy activates the immune system to destroy naturally occurring canine osteosarcoma as a way to prevent or delay disease progression.

Jaime Modiano, D.V.M, Ph.D., University of Minnesota; Stephen Russell, M.D., Mayo Clinic

Bioengineered Oral Vaccines against MRSA “Superbug”
This project will develop vaccines against the antibiotic resistant bacteria MRSA. If this project is successful, the bacteria will be rendered sensitive to the antibiotics that currently do not work, including penicillin and its derivatives. These vaccines also hold promises to eliminate these dangerous infectious agents before surgery or implantation of artificial joints or cardiac pacemakers to reduce the risk of untreatable infections.

Michael Barry, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic; Chun Wang, Ph.D., University of Minnesota

Evaluating Novel Therapeutic Strategies for Treating Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy
Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy is a late onset degenerative eye disease. Corneal transplantation is the only available treatment option for this disease. With the identification of the underlying disease mechanism, researchers are now in a position to better understand the disease process and will be testing therapeutic strategies to identify drug classes that will slow disease progression.

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