{
  "patent_number": "US 4356270",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How Scientists Taught Bacteria to Make Human Hormones",
  "original_title": "Recombinant DNA cloning vehicle",
  "summary": "Genentech's 1979 patent on using engineered DNA to force bacteria to produce human proteins like insulin and growth hormones.",
  "what_it_does": "This patent describes a method for inserting synthetic DNA into a bacterial plasmid—a small, circular piece of DNA—so the bacteria acts like a factory. The key innovation is using 'codon optimization,' where the synthetic gene is written using the specific DNA 'language' that bacteria prefer, making them much more efficient at reading the instructions to build human proteins. By placing this gene between specific DNA 'cut sites' (restriction endonuclease sites), researchers could reliably insert and express mammalian hormones like somatostatin or insulin chains within a microbial host.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover naturally occurring DNA sequences that have not been synthetically modified for microbial expression.",
    "Does not cover the use of non-bacterial hosts like yeast or mammalian cell cultures for protein production.",
    "Does not cover the specific medical treatments or clinical applications of the hormones produced.",
    "Does not cover gene editing techniques like CRISPR that modify DNA in place rather than using cloning vehicles."
  ],
  "filed": "1979-11-05",
  "granted": "1982-10-26",
  "expires": "1999-11-05",
  "status": "expired",
  "holder": "Genentech Inc",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/genentech-inc",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Keiichi Itakura",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/keiichi-itakura"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 86,
  "tags": [
    "biotech",
    "pharmaceutical"
  ],
  "abstract": "The Specification discloses: 1. Recombinant microbial cloning vehicles comprising heterologous DNA coding for the expression of mammalian hormone (e.g., somatostatin) and other polypeptides, including plasmids suited for the transformation of bacterial hosts. The latter incorporate a regulon homologous to the host in its untransformed state, in reading phase with the structural gene for the heterologous DNA; 2. Cloning vehicles coding for the microbial expression of a protein variously comprising (a) a polypeptide hapten and additional protein sufficient in size to confer immunogenicity on the product of expression, which may find use in raising antibodies to the hapten for assay use or in the manufacture of vaccines; and (b) a desired polypeptide product and additional protein from which the desired product may be cleaved; and 3. Methods of preparing synthetic structural genes coding for the expression of mammalian polypeptides in microbial cloning systems.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/4356270/recombinant-dna-cloning-genentech",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/4356270/recombinant-dna-cloning-genentech/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US4356270",
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}