Lexicon awarded Biodefence grant

Lexicon Genetics, from The Woodlands, TX, has been awarded a grant from the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) for the discovery of novel drug targets that could provide resistance to ricin poisoning. Lexicon will receive $1.9m in funding for the one-year initial term of the grant.

Under the grant, Lexicon will carry out a research programme directed towards identifying proteins, known as host factors, which may mediate the effects of ricin poisoning. In the research programme, Lexicon will use its proprietary gene knockout technology to study genes that, when blocked, may confer resistance to the toxic effects of ricin exposure. Identification of the host factors involved in toxin action may enable the development of drugs designed to block these factors, with the goal of rendering an organism temporarily resistant to ricin.

'Lexicon's proprietary gene knockout technology, coupled with our comprehensive system for analyzing the physiological effects of genes in mammals, can provide the Army with important information in its effort to combat the harmful effects of bioterrorism and biological warfare agents,' said Dr Arthur Sands, president and chief executive officer of Lexicon. 'We believe the methods we will be using to find host factors for ricin resistance could have broader applications for other toxins or infectious agents.'

Effective treatments to defend against ricin as a bioterrorism or biological warfare agent could be important to public health and biodefense. Ricin is a poison that can be made from the waste left over from processing castor beans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some reports have indicated that ricin may have been used in the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s and that quantities of ricin were found in Al Qaeda caves in Afghanistan.