Hemispherx Biopharma and Chronix Biomedical Present Data on a Novel Diagnostic Approach for CFS at the IACFS/ME Biennial Conference
Press Release Source: Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. On Monday September 26, 2011, 8:00 am EDT
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 26, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. (NYSE Amex:HEB) ("Hemispherx" or the "Company") announced that it presented new data on a blood test for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). CFS is a severe disorder consisting of profound fatigue and a variety of other debilitating symptoms that affects up to 4 million Americans.
CFS places an economic burden on the Unites States estimated at more than $9 billion annually. The data presented at the IACFS/ME Biennial Conference held September 22-25, 2011 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada is based on Chronix Biomedical, Inc.'s ("Chronix") technology, which analyzes DNA released into the bloodstream by dying and damaged cells and has the potential to detect genomic alterations unique to diseased cells.
Previously, Chronix utilized Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to generate sufficient DNA sequences to provide the statistical power to identify alterations in blood DNA from patients with breast and prostate cancer vs. normal healthy controls.
The aim of this recent CFS study was to find signature DNA sequences from patients with CFS compared to healthy controls with respect to their diagnostic predictive value, as well as, to potentially provide new insight into CFS biology. DNA extracted from serum samples of CFS subjects and normal healthy controls was sequenced and compared to the human genome.
A total of about 10,000 high quality sequence reads were generated from each serum sample and four genes were identified by Multivariate Regression that separated CFS patients from the normal control group with a c-value of 0.95. These results support additional studies with a larger CFS cohort using more powerful Massively Parallel Sequencing platforms with the aim of reduction to validated clinical assays for the diagnosis and evaluation of CFS and to explore whether the technology can be used to identify how different persons with CFS will respond to Hemispherx's experimental drug Ampligen(R).
Chronix and Hemispherx previously announced (March 3, 2011) the filing of a joint patent application for a blood test for CFS based on this technology. Chronix and Hemispherx are currently planning to validate the ability of the approach to identify how different persons with CFS can respond to Hemispherx's experimental drug Ampligen(R). The blood test for CFS is experimental in nature and has not been evaluated by any regulatory agency. It is currently limited to investigational use.
