Synaptic activity marker for use in drug discovery

Licensing opportunity

Scientists at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, which is part of the Novartis Research Foundation, have devised methods and materials for uncovering markers of synaptic activity and identifying compounds that are modulators of such activity.

The inventors have shown that activation of NMDA receptors produce long-duration Ca2+-dependent targeting of profilin II to spine heads.

This forms the basis of a method for identifying or detecting a synapse that has been activated, or assessing the level of activation of a synapse. This is achieved by determining the presence and/or amount in a morphologically specialised postsynaptic site in the synapse of a detectable cellular component associated with the activation, and then correlating the result of the determination with synaptic activation.

A European patent is pending and an exclusive or non-exclusive license available.