Strategic Diagnostics Inc. Enters Supply Agreement for Antibody Library for Study of Chromosome Proteins with University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Portfolio to be made available through SDI’s SEQer(TM) Antibody Product Catalog
NEWARK, Del.–Strategic Diagnostics Inc. (Nasdaq: SDIX – News) – a leading provider of biotechnology-based detection solutions for a broad range of food, water, agricultural, industrial, environmental and life science applications, announced that it will be providing Jason Lieb’s Laboratory at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill with a library of antibodies produced through SDI’s proprietary Genomic Antibody Technology™ (GAT) platform. Lieb has selected these antibodies for use in his work that is part of the National Human Genome Research Institute’s model-organism ENCODE (modENCODE) Project. The project is working to identify and characterize DNA sequence elements and proteins that control genome activity in the Caenorhabditis elegans (worm) and Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) genomes. These two model organism species represent the most advanced models for the understanding of the corresponding human regulatory proteins.
Lieb’s project, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, will focus specifically on those areas of the genome that regulate chromosomal functions such as transcription, DNA replication and repair, recombination and chromosome segregation. The project is dependent upon quality antibodies to profile the protein dynamics in the study systems. Jason Lieb, a faculty member in the Department of Biology and Carolina Center for Genome Sciences stated, “Seeing the performance of GAT antibodies in our pilot program was clear reason for our team to change the entire strategy for generating our library. The GAT system also eliminates my team’s need to generate antigens – allowing us to focus on our scientific goals and not reagent production.”
Matthew H. Knight, SDI’s President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are very pleased to have been selected to generate this library to further the understanding of chromosome function on the protein level. Decisions in the Life Science industry are based on performance and availability of resources. The Lieb group selected SDI and GAT due to the clear financial benefit of our technology and success rates beyond traditional methods.”
In the arrangement, SDI will retain the commercial rights to the antibodies produced and will be the sole commercial distributor to the scientific community through the SDI’s SEQer™ catalog.
About Strategic Diagnostics Inc.
Strategic Diagnostics Inc. is a leading provider of biotechnology-based detection solutions for a broad range of food, water, agricultural, industrial, environmental and life science applications. By applying its core competencies of antibody, and assay development, the Company produces unique, sophisticated diagnostic testing and reagent systems that are responsive to customer diagnostic and information needs. Customers benefit with quantifiable “return on investment” by reducing time, labor, and/or material costs. All this is accomplished while increasing accuracy, reliability and actionability of essential test results. The Company is focused on sustaining this competitive advantage by leveraging its expertise in immunology, proteomics, bio-luminescence and other bio-reactive technologies to continue its successful customer-focused research and development efforts. Recent innovations in high throughput production of antibodies from genetic antigens will complement the Company’s established leadership in commercial and custom antibody production for the Research, Human/Animal Diagnostics, and Pharmaceutical industries, and position the Company for broader participation in proteomics research and discovery.