The Trustees of Boston College

Ensemble Therapeutics Corporation

Larry W McLaughlin

James M Coull

Dongli Chen

Lawrence A Haff

Joshua A Bittker

Andrew W Fraley

Tao Lan

The invention provides turnover probes for use in a variety of detection assays, for example, nucleic acid detection assays. In addition, the invention provides assays, for example, nucleic acid detection assays, using such turnover probes.

Turn over probes and use thereof for nucleic acid detection

The present invention relates to dideoxynucleoside analog compounds containing a dideoxy ribofuranosyl moiety that exhibit selective anti-viral activity coupled with substantially low toxicity toward the host cells. In particular, the compounds according to the present invention show potent inhibition of the replication of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), while remaining substantially inert toward host cell DNA. Compounds according to the present invention exhibit primary utility as agents for inhibiting the growth or replication of retroviruses, particularly HIV. The compounds of the invention comprise a (2,3'-dideoxy-&#x3b2;-ribofuranosyl) ring coupled to a heterocyclic nucleobase that lacks an 'O2 carbonyl', that enables them to selectively react with and inhibit viral reverse transcriptase, while remaining substantially unreactive toward human DNA polymerases.

Selective anti-viral nucleoside chain terminators

Growing community of inventors

Dover, MA, United States of America

Larry W McLaughlin