Dollars for Profs

Dig Into University Researchers' Outside Income and Conflicts of Interest

Published Dec. 6, 2019

This database was last updated in December 2019 and should only be used as a historical snapshot. There may be new or amended records not reflected here.

Financial doc
Filing Type

Conflict of Interest

Institutions must file significant disclosures to the National Institutes of Health if they determine financial relationships could affect the design, conduct or reporting of the NIH-funded research. The NIH provided us with their entire financial conflict of interest database, with filings from 2012 through 2019.

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Chad Mirkin

Northwestern University, Department: Chemistry

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Disclosed Conflict of Interest with

AuraSense Therapeutics, LLC

Disclosed Value
Listed Reason
Equity Interest - Non-publicly traded entity ( e.g., stock, stock option, or other ownership interest)

This research uses nanoparticles as potential therapeutic agents in the treatment of glioblastoma in patients that develop resistance to chemotherapy. The goal is to suppress the expression of the MGMT gene that encodes a DNA methytransferase associated with chemotherapeutic resistance. This will be done using nanoparticles of spherical nucleic acids targeting MGMT. Similar therapeutic approaches using engineered nanoparticles and spherical nucleic acids are a goal of the biotechnology company AuraSense Therapeutics, LLC, in which Professor Mirkin is a founder and discloses both receipt of remuneration and equity interest. Given the close relationship of the work and goals of AuraSense and this proposal, continued development of these spherical nucleic acids for therapeutic application funded through this grant may result in a perceived conflict of interest that should be managed.

Listed Research Project
Overcoming Temozolomide Resistance using MGMT-targeting Spherical Nucleic Acids

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an aggressive type of brain tumor that, despite treatment, typically kills patients within 15 months of initial diagnosis. Our goal is to drastically improve GBM treatment by developing nanoparticles that have the potential to eliminate resistance to chemotherapy. This will improve our ability to destroy tumor cells and increase survival times in patients.

Filed on April 19, 2013.

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Name Institution Type Company Disclosed Value
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University at Chicago Conflict of Interest Exicure $100,000 - $149,999
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University at Chicago Conflict of Interest AuraSense Therapeutics, LLC $5,000 - $9,999
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University at Chicago Conflict of Interest Exicure $100,000 - $149,999
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University at Chicago Conflict of Interest Exicure Value cannot be readily determined
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University at Chicago Conflict of Interest Exicure $100,000 - $149,999
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University at Chicago Conflict of Interest Exicure, Inc. Value cannot be readily determined
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University at Chicago Conflict of Interest AuraSense, LLC Value cannot be readily determined
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University Conflict of Interest AuraSense Therapeutics, LLC $5,000 - $9,999
Chad Mirkin Northwestern University at Chicago Conflict of Interest AuraSense Value cannot be readily determined
If you see an error in the database or a reason we should not disclose a record, please contact us at [email protected] and we'll evaluate it on a case-by-case basis.
Sources: National Institutes of Health, public records requests filed at multiple public state universities

Notes: When a more specific filing date is not available for an individual financial disclosure or conflict of interest form, we use the year the form was filed. If the year was not disclosed, we report the range of years covered by our public records requests. In a few cases, a start date was provided instead of a filing date. In those cases, we use the start date instead.

Fewer than 10% of records from the University of Florida and fewer than 1% of records from the University of Texas system were removed because they did not contain enough information.

ProPublica obtained additional financial disclosures and conflict of interest forms that we have not yet digitized and added to the database. You can download those disclosures in the ProPublica Data Store.

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