Paradigm genetics received its second “Fast Track” grant from the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday.
The study is to focus on metabolomics and alcohol induced toxicity. The grant includes $100,000 in additional funding with more money to follow.
The Fast Track Small Business Innovation research grants are designed to expedite applications that have high potential for commercialization, Paradigm said in a statement.
Paradigm received another grant earlier in the week for liver research.
“Phase I includes preclinical studies examining the acute and chronic effects of high doses of ethanol, an addictive toxin that is primarily processed by the liver,” Paradigm said in a statement. “Using mass spectrometry, the Company will identify key biochemicals in liver, brain and plasma that are altered in association with changes in tissue pathology and other traditional measures of disease, such as elevated serum enzyme levels. The altered biochemicals will be mapped to their relevant biochemical pathways as a means of determining a mechanism and assessing a causal linkage to disease.”
The research will focus on the potential of using biochemical profiling and the discovery of biomarkers related to alcohol-related diseases.
Paradigm will work with researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill.
Phase II will include metabolomic assessment of plasma, liver and brain metabolites, Paradigm added.
“I am excited that this collaboration with Paradigm Genetics will provide us with the opportunity to discover unique metabolic biomarkers that relate to and predict pathological changes induced by acute alcohol abuse and alcoholism in liver, brain and perhaps in other critical target organs,” said Fulton Crews, Director, Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, and UNC-CH professor of pharmacology and psychiatry.
Paradigm: www.paradigmgenetics.com
