Science & Technology Overview
Biocortech's development strategy involves restoring deficient pathways in the adult brain and/or modulating receptor function via changes in mRNA editing. Current drug candidates overcome many of the key limitations of antidepressants. Biocortech is leveraging its proprietary EDIT technology to improve diagnosis, disease categorization, treatment responses, and patient monitoring.
Our approach: Measuring changes in RNA editing of serotonin 5-HT2C and glutamate receptors as biomarkers/drug targets: The EDIT Platform
The human genome contains only 30,000 genes, stressing the importance of mechanisms that increase molecular diversity at the post-transcriptional level. One such post-transcriptional event is RNA editing, which generates multiple protein isoforms from a single gene, often with profound physiological consequences. This process occurs in the serotonin 5-HT2C and glutamate receptors, two important CNS proteins involved in diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, obesity, and pain. Despite the functional and physiological implications of RNA editing, significant technical limitations on the ability to generate complete receptor profiles have hampered progress in the field.
Biocortech has addressed these limitations with the EDIT platform, a unique and patented platform that allows rapid, quantitative assessment of the full profile of edited receptors, enabling generation of a receptor "signature" for pathological conditions. Biocortech is applying its EDIT technology to generate mRNA signatures of CNS diseases as biomarkers of receptor function, disease mechanisms, and companion compounds.
Biocortech's core focus is on exploiting diagnostics and therapeutics through the development of
- Receptor Editing Profiles as biomarkers: Editing profiles have potential use as markers of disease risk, treatment efficacy, or toxicity. Editing profiles can also function as a biomarker for adapting treatments to subsets of patients.
- Editing modulators as therapeutics: Biocortech evidenced that the modulation of receptor editing may have therapeutic potential (BC19).