BrainPrint™

         Preclinical analysis of drugs typically involves physiological tests on reduced and limited preparations such as brain slices, individual neurons, classes of receptors, or a set of behavioral assays.  These restricted systems are used to decide if a candidate drug will advance to expensive and pivotal human trials.  Selecting drugs to go into humans with such an incomplete biologic understanding leads to many of the clinical failures that mar the drug development business.

         Thuris’ BrainPrint technology is a proprietary method for analyzing the location of effects of a drug throughout the entire brain.  This technology allows for anatomical mapping down to the resolution of every individual neuron within the brain -- an exceptional level of spatial resolution. By comparison, PET and MRI scans achieve resolutions that are far less detailed. Thuris is seeking corporate partners to utilize this technology for drug discovery and development.

The figure illustrates the ability of the method to identify brain regions engaged during male sexual behavior; shown on the left is the known anatomical connectivity map of brain regions involved in copulation, and on the right is a BrainPrint™ illustrating areas of a rat’s brain activated during sexual behavior.

Collaboration: Degussa (Germany)