JOINT RECOMMENDATIONS: Mouse Genomics and Genetics Subgroup and Mouse Models of Human Cancers Subgroup
#1. In concert with the NIH at large, develop and implement political initiatives that set limits on reach-through royalty clauses on technology transfer agreements proffered by the holders of intellectual property, whether in academia or industry. Establish fair and just standards that appropriately reward the developers of new technology, while at the same time providing incentive for such tools to be used widely in biomedical research and in the development of new therapeutics.
i. Develop a solution to the restrictive Dupont patents for the 'oncomouse' and for the cre/lox technology.
ii. Investigate the 'Transgenic Mouse Patent' owned by DNX, which is being aggressively protected, to the extent that smaller biotech companies are stopping the development of transgenic mouse models.
iii. Establish a national standard (and intellectual principles) for compensation associated with the transfer of tools and technologies, including those associated with mouse models, as contrasted to discoveries of specific product candidates that need broad protection to justify their development.
#2. Develop national standards for mouse care and criteria for setting appropriate costs/charges for such care, and design fiscal support mechanisms that enable the widespread use of mice to study cancer mechanisms and to identify and validate preventative and therapeutic strategies for human cancers.
i. Establish uniform criteria for what are right and proper standards for care of mice, and that spell out real cost criteria to be used by institutions to formulate recharge rates for such care in the context of NIH-sponsored research.
ii. Encourage acceptance of the proposal that animal care facilities no longer be considered as 'specialized' and thus inappropriate for support under the indirect cost umbrella, but rather identified as 'general' and thus appropriate.
iii. Investigate other mechanisms to make animal care more efficient and affordable, including animal facility improvement grants to render them larger and/or more cost effective.
iv. Formulate 'peer-reviewed' funding mechanisms that will allow mouse models of every human cancer to be built, and their pathways of tumorigenesis studied, in particular for modifier genes that influence the severity and progression of the cancer, which likely reflect similar genes segregating in the human population.
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RECOMMENDATIONS: Mouse Genomics and Genetics Subgroup
1. Implement a mouse cancer genome anatomy program (m-CGAP), following along the lines of the human CGAP initiative, taking into account the opportunities presented by this experimental organism.
i. cDNA Library Production.
ii. cDNA Sequence Analysis.
iii. Mapping new genes onto the mouse and human genomes.
iv. Expression analysis of the mouse genome using array technologies.
2. Construct a BAC-based physical map of the mouse genome.
3. Identify a set of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that span the mouse genome at high resolution (ca. 1 per 50-100,000 bp), building a platform upon which to implement efficient, array-based genome scanning methods for identifying genes that influence cancer phenotypes.
i. Encourage the development and refinement of technologies (a 'SNP Detector') for efficiently identifying mouse SNPs across a set of mouse strains and species used in cancer research.
ii. Elicit the generation and dissemination of a Mouse SNP Map that spans the mouse genome, with SNPs spaced every 50-100 kb, or about two per BAC clone of the projected physical map of the mouse genome (for the 'core strains').
iii. In various partnerships, seek to have the Mouse SNP Map incorporated into arrays and other formats that would allow high throughput genome scanning and fine structure linkage analysis so as to motivate widespread use of genetic mapping technologies, consequently expediting the discovery of genes which influence cancer phenotypes in mouse models of human cancers.
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