Vol. 1, 2018 MRIGlobal Stakeholder Highlight: MRIGlobal Life Sciences Work Impacts Global Health

Vol. 1, 2018 MRIGlobal Stakeholder Highlight: MRIGlobal Life Sciences Work Impacts Global Health

Serious health issues or an act of terrorism, the research expertise of Kansas City-based MRIGlobal takes on the challenging problems. MRIGlobal plays a critical role in the prevention, detection, diagnosis, and response to global health threats. Under the Global Health Security Agenda, other nations rely on the United States for continued support to defend the world from infectious disease outbreaks. MRIGlobal’s role includes technology development, capacity and capability building, and collaborative research support for human, environmental, animal, and plant disease diagnostics and surveillance, both domestically and abroad.

In human health, MRIGlobal leads the Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (Mtb) Quality Assessment Program for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, providing a new resource to assess the ability of laboratories located both in the United States and outside (non-United States) to accurately and reliably perform Mtb testing. Testing will diagnose active and latent Mtb infection, monitor disease progression, and assess treatment response and vaccine efficacy in direct support of clinical trials.

The Program will improve and enhance performance of clinical laboratories by providing important information to support clinical trials in the battle against the resurgence of antimicrobial resistant TB. As new tests/methodologies are developed, the TBQA program will facilitate adaptation, standardization, and quality assessment prior to inclusion in clinical trials.

Partnering with the National Institutes of Health for more than 40 years, MRIGlobal plays a key role in navigating the steps to bring breakthrough drugs from “bench to bedside”. Today, MRIGlobal validates analytical methods under strict regulatory requirements to verify identity, characterize impurity profiles, and assess stability of therapeutics for the treatment of organ tissue cancers for the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

MRIGlobal’s clinical research support portfolio includes continuing support of the National Cancer Institute in procurement of cancer prevention therapeutics, comprehensive drug product testing, and world-wide distribution. This includes clinical trial support and supply chain management.

Two drugs currently under study at MRIGlobal include a topical formulation for targeted prevention of breast cancer and a synthetic flexible heteroarotinoid chemopreventative agent. MRIGlobal optimized the formulation of the topical breast cancer prevention agent and is moving into Phase I clinical trials. MRIGlobal leads the production of the novel synthetic flexible hetoroarotinoid agent, which has exhibited growth inhibition on 60 cancer cell lines in vitro, along with ovarian, lung, and kidney cancers in vivo. This agent is under development for use in Phase I clinical trial.

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