Academic nephrologist David Moskowitz spent years collecting epidemiologic data in his lab. Analyses of genomic DNA from blood samples taken from his kidney patients consistently showed a link between disease and expression of angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE). The observation was subsequently borne out during four years of successfully treating his 1,000 patients with ACE inhibitors, which are normally used to treat hypertension. His experience made Moskowitz a believer in the concept of gene-based drug targets and prompted him to form DzGenes LLC . The company's goal is to find single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, that are associated with diseases affecting large numbers of patients, such as end-stage renal failure and other complications of hypertension and diabetes, and cancer.
Moskowitz initially had been looking for factors that would help maintain healthy kidney function. To do this, he took renal...
