Corporate history
Licensing
In December 2003, the University of Cambridge granted ProteinLogic Ltd a worldwide, exclusive license to commercially exploit the intellectual property owned by Cambridge University, Addenbrookes NHS Trust (now Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust), and the Medical Research Council (MRC).
Technology developers
The technology was developed by Dr César Milstein and Dr Adrian Woolfson at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.They were subsequently joined by Professor Nick Hales from the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge.The technology is partly based on work on monoclonal antibodies, for which Milstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.
New technology and analysis
Unlike existing diagnostic systems, which measure only a single or at most two to three specific proteins, the new research uses high-throughput multiplexing technology and monoclonal antibodies to measure multiple body fluid proteins in parallel.
Powerful pattern recognition software developed by the team in Cambridge, in conjunction with Cambridge University's Physics Department, is then used to analyse large databases of individual proteomic profiles to generate disease-specific patterns or 'fingerprints'.
Applications
The technology shows promise in providing a way to identify any disease through a single blood or other body fluid test. It also provides the basis for monitoring responses to medical therapy, prognostics, drug rescue and personalised medicine.
The key to the technology is the protein content that ProteinLogic Ltd has identified.
By focusing on a small, discreet, logical and finite set of markers, ProteinLogic Ltd has solved the content problem, and significantly reduced the dimensions of complexity associated with the proteomic analysis of complex protein solutions.
The technology is unusual in that it also enables the same set of markers to be used for all diseases, each of which has its own unique proteomic barcode.