White Point SystemsWHITE POINT SYSTEMS, INC.

PRESS RELEASE

CONTACT:
Gregg R. Dietzman
White Point BioMarine, Inc.
(360) 378-7292

Karen Hurlbut
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI)
(909) 793-2853 ext 1-1582

FOR RELEASE: June 15, 1996

WHITE POINT BIOMARINE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS RESEARCH INSTITUTE (ESRI) ANNOUNCE R&D COLLABORATION IN INFORMATION HANDLING TECHNOLOGY

(Friday Harbor, WA and Redlands, CA) -- White Point BioMarine, Inc. and Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., (ESRI) both privately held companies, announce today a collaborative research agreement that is largely supported by Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant funds from the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. White Point BioMarine works with natural products chemicals used in the screening of new drug leads, and ESRI is a developer of geographic information system (GIS) software used in information management. The collaboration will develop White Point BioMarine’s proprietary information handling approach using a variety of ESRI’s GIS products. Terms of the agreement are not disclosed.

White Point BioMarine is the first company to use GIS software technology to deliver an information management system that supports drug discovery efforts -- NAPIS (NAtural Products Information System). NAPIS will support researchers at the government, industry, and university level by providing a link between the library, laboratory, and the field. Incorporation of GIS technology allows traditional database tables to be related to spatial features on computer-based maps. NAPIS is developed within a client-server environment but can also function autonomously, it is modular, scaleable, and secure.

The NAPIS technology provides important features for researchers working with natural products chemicals. Natural products are chemical or genetic materials derived from natural sources that are commonly used in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Because chemical diversity in the natural environment is primarily based upon biological and geographic diversity, researchers travel the world acquiring samples to evaluate in their drug discovery screens. Documenting the detailed ecology of each sample collection is not feasible, however, because most come from widely different organism groups -- and questions that arise during follow-on studies are frequently not addressed at the initial collection.

This creates gaps within the information record for each sample collection, gaps that can be filled using GIS. For these follow-on questions, researchers can use GIS to add spatial data (=mapped data) on a need to know basis, and addition of these varied data does not affect the NAPIS logical design and data model. The result is an information system that relieves the burden of documentation at the initial collection stage, and provides extended power for query of the dataset to support follow-on studies. This technology holds potential for greater efficiency in the drug discovery process.

The NAPIS technology supports the drug discovery process by providing links to commercially available databases that contain information on known natural products chemistry, with the ability to map the occurrence of these known chemical sources within a GIS; the unpublished collection sites of proprietary efforts can also be mapped at the same time. Information at this level, points on a map grid, can then be used to ensure diversity and to plan collecting expeditions. For follow-on studies, extended GIS functionality supports site selection for wild-biomass recollections, and ecology studies to determine if environmental factors play a role in the production of these structurally diverse natural products chemical compounds.

The extended information handling requirements faced by drug discovery programs that screen natural products chemicals are met by the NAPIS technology, where they can be converted to assets for guiding future efforts and enhance the probability of success.


Additional Information:

The natural environment is a rich source of structurally diverse chemical compounds that are used in drug discovery screens. Many drugs on the market today were discovered from natural sources, two important examples include the analgesic activity of aspirin from the bark of the willow tree which is known from folklore, and the antibiotic activity of penicillin from molds of the genus Penicillium that was discovered serendipitously in the laboratory. Today drug discovery is performed using two different methods, the so-called “rational” and “empirical” approaches. Rational drug discovery is based upon the molecular basis of disease and the design of chemical compounds to act as antagonists that inhibit the disease process. Empirical drug discovery is based upon screening large numbers of chemical compounds for activity against therapeutic targets (=bioassays) felt to be of predictive use. Most of the drugs on the market today were discovered from natural sources using the “empirical” method.

The technology base to support “rational” drug discovery at industrial levels is at least a generation away, and current screening technologies using “empirical” methods have aligned the field of drug discovery to realistic proportions. The trends in drug discovery screening are toward mechanism based assays that can be performed in a matter of minutes, in contrast to whole-cell based assays that require days. These trends are also supported by laboratory robotics and information handling technologies which together define the emerging field of “high-throughput screening” -- drug discovery screens capable of testing upwards of 100,000 test substances per week against several different disease targets. Also, the trends in “high throughput screening’ are toward smaller test substance quantities and are consistent with conservation initiatives.

Drug discovery screens based on the “empirical” method require access to chemical diversity and frequently look to nature for a library of structurally diverse chemical compounds. Synthetic and combinatorial chemistry methods also provide an important source of chemical diversity for discovery screens, but provide only chemical analogs of a limited set of structural types. The recently FDA approved anticancer agent, Taxol, from the Pacific yew tree Taxus brevifolia, is an important example of “empirical” drug discovery using natural product chemicals, synthetic and combinatorial methods would not yield this complex structural type.

Natural products chemicals are extracted from the tissues of terrestrial plants, marine organisms, and microorganism fermentation broths. A crude extract from one source organism typically contains scores of novel, structurally diverse chemical types. Biological diversity plus geographic diversity gives rise to natural products chemical diversity. Drug discovery efforts look to a wide variety of sources to achieve a high level of chemical diversity, and must document the sources of this diversity.

Natural products chemicals have played, and will continue to play, a key role in drug discovery. Screening natural products extracts, however, is expensive when compared with synthetic and combinatorial chemical libraries. Biological activity directed isolation studies and structural elucidation of unknown compounds adds to the expense. Acquiring and tracking natural products source organism collections have extended requirements for information handling. Combining these requirements within one system, NAPIS, will not only reduce their costs, but can provide the leverage to convert them to assets for guiding future efforts.


White Point BioMarine, Inc., incorporated in 1993, is an innovative service company that supports the biotechnology industry with natural products chemistry programs, and the natural resource management industry with environmental assessment services; programs serving both these industries incorporate advanced technologies for information handling.

ESRI was founded in 1969 as a research group devoted to improving methods of handling geographically referenced data. Today, ESRI is the leading developer of geographic information system (GIS) software, with more than 100,00 clients worldwide. ESRI also provides consulting, implementation, and technical support services. In addition to its headquarters in California, ESRI has regional offices throughout the United States, international offices and distributors in more than 70 countries, and more than 50 resellers and developers. ESRI’s goal is to provide users with comprehensive tools to help them quickly and efficiently manage and use geographic information to make a real difference in the world around them. ESRI can be found on the World Wild Web at http://www.esri.com.


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