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DUTCH
ENDOCRINOLOGIST TO DELIVER LECTURE ON GROWTH HORMONE JAN.
20
Contact:
Dr. John Kopchick, Edison Biotechnology Institute, (740)
593-4713
ATHENS,
Ohio -- Dr. A.J. van der Lely, a Dutch endocrinologist, will
deliver a lecture about the clinical aspects and trials of
growth hormone antagonists at noon Thursday, January 20, in
Irvine Hall, Room 199.
Van der
Lely, Head of the Clinical Research Unit at the Erasmus
University Medical Centre Academic Hospital in Rotterdam,
The Netherlands, will discuss results from a clinical trial
to study the blockade of the growth hormone receptor in men,
as well as the clinical implications of using growth hormone
antagonists. He is a member of the Dutch Endocrine Society,
the American Society of Endocrinology and the British
Endocrine Society.
An Ohio
University research team, led by John Kopchick, Goll-Ohio
Professor of molecular biology, discovered growth hormone
antagonists more than 10 years ago in labs in the
university's Edison Biotechnology Institute. Ohio University
recently received the third U.S. patent in a series on the
technology, which serves as the basis for the drug
pegvisomant. This summer, Texas scientists successfully used
the drug in clinical trials to treat acromegaly, a disease
that affects about 40,000 people worldwide. Sensus Drug
Development Corp., the company that licensed the antagonist
technology from Ohio University and developed pegvisomant,
plans to file for Federal Drug Administration approval for
the drug's use in acromegaly early this year.
The
lecture is sponsored by Ohio University's Edison
Biotechnology Institute, the Department of Biomedical
Sciences in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, and the
Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Arts and
Sciences.
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