National Cancer Institute; Opportunity for a Cooperative Research Agreement (CRADA) for the Scientific and Commercial Development of Monoclonal Antibodies to a Tumor-Specific Growth Factor for the Diagnosis and Prognosis of Premalignant Lesions and Cancer

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The National Cancer Institute (NCI) seeks a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company that can effectively pursue the scientific and commercial generation and development of a panel of monoclonal antibodies against an epidermal growth factor (EGF)-related peptide, cripto-1 (CR-1). The project is of scientific importance because CR-1 is a protein that exhibits structural homology to the EGF/transforming growth factor (TGF ) gene family peptides. As such, CR-1 might function as a growth factor or growth inhibitor. Therefore, CR-1 may be important as an autocrine or paracrine modulator in such processes as tumor cell growth, wound repair, neovascularization, and inflammation. NCI has successfully isolated and cloned the gene that encodes CR- 1, an EGF-related peptide growth factor that does not function through the EGF receptor. The NCI has also obtained a rabbit anti-peptide polyclonal antibody that can detect the expression of CR-1 in formalin- fixed, paraffin-embedded human tissue sections. CR-1 has been shown to be preferentially and differentially expressed in several different human premalignant lesions and cancers. The selected sponsor will purify a recombinant CR-1 protein and u