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Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a life-long chronic autoimmune disease diagnosed primarily in young adults who have a virtually normal life expectancy. Estimates place the annual costs of MS in the United States in excess of $2.5 billion. There are approximately 250,000 to 400,000 persons in the United States with MS, and approximately 2.5 million persons worldwide suffer from MS. A variety of therapies are used to treat MS, but there is no single therapy that can be used to treat all patients.

Autoreactive T cell clones such as TL3A6 and TL5F6 that recognize an autoantigen, which is potentially relevant for an autoimmune disease, for example, multiple sclerosis (MS), offer the potential to examine the disease pathogenesis and develop new treatments. Such treatments aim at disrupting or interfering with the specific interaction between autoreactive T cells, antigen presenting cells and antigenic peptide. Current treatments have immunomodulatory effects and side effects. These T cell lines will be useful for developing novel treatment approaches for multiple sclerosis.

The present invention relates to the field of apoptosis, in particular, it relates to apoptosis-modifying fusion proteins with at least two domains, one of which targets the fusion proteins to a target cell, and another of which modifies an apoptotic response of the target cell. For example, fusing various cell-binding domains to Bcl-X_L and Bad allows targeting to specific subsets of cells in vivo, permitting treatment and/or prevention of cell-death related consequences of various diseases and injuries.

Neurotransmitter release is dependent on a binding complex (designated as SNAR) of three proteins, synaptic-vesicle-associated protein synaptobrevin/VAMP, syntaxin and SNAP-25 (snaptosome-associated protein-25) with results in a calcium dependent fusion between synaptic vesicles and the presynaptic terminal. SNAPIN, a neuron specific protein found predominately on synaptic vesicles, binds to the SNAR complex, most likely to the SNAP-25.

Prevention of cardiovascular disorders such as myocardial infarction and stroke is an area of major public health importance. Currently, several risk factors for future cardiovascular disorders have been described and are in wide clinical use in the detection of individuals at high risk. However a large number of cardiovascular disorders occur in individuals with apparently low to moderate risk profiles, thereby limiting the ability to identify such patients. Moreover, many of the risk factors require accurate gathering of clinical information.

Micropthalmia Transcription Factor (MITF) plays an important role in melanocyte development and melanoma growth. MITF is important for embryonic development, regulating the generation of pigment cells and formation of melanomas and other tumors. MITF is made in various isoforms that may play unique roles for different organs during different developmental periods. Additionally, tissue MITF levels can serve as a molecular marker for the diagnosis of metastatic melanoma and therapeutic response.

This invention comprises a novel artificial network for learning, recognizing, and generating temporal (time-dependent) spacial processing that offers to improve simulations of natural and biologic systems including human learning processes. Previously developed artificial neural networks have limitations because they often do not recognize sequences for which they have not been pre-programmed and have great difficulty discriminating temporal spacial patterns.

Fabry disease is a severe metabolic disorder that affects the vascular system of multiple tissues and organs. An estimated 1 in 40,000 individuals inherit this rare disease, and suffer from various complications including stroke, renal failure, and cardiac arrest. At present, molecular markers that directly measure cellular dysfunction to not exist, thus, prognosis for Fabry disease therapy can not be assessed.

This invention is a new three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging device that will allow better imaging of biologic tissue. Conventional BURST technology excites a set of equally spaced, narrow strips in an object and creates an image from a single slice, perpendicular to the direction of the strips. In order to scan multiple slices or for three-dimensional imaging, repeated excitation of the same strips is required. For ultra-fast scanning, repetition times are short compared to longitudinal relaxation times, leading to saturation effects and, thus, inefficiency.

Available for licensing and commercial development are methods of using two MAP kinase kinase (MEK) inhibitors, PD98059 and U0126, in the prevention and treatment of polyomavirus infection. Decrease in viral protein expression upon treatment with the MEK inhibitors has been demonstrated for two polyomavirus species, JC virus (JCV) and BK virus (BKV). It is believed that these MEK inhibitors may also be effective against other polyomavirus species in which TGF-beta expression is elevated.