Gene Bridges GmbH, the recombineering company, today announced that Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited of Osaka, Japan has completed a commercial license agreement for the use of the Red/ET recombination technology from Gene Bridges. The Red/ET recombination technology, patented in Japan under the title “Novel DNA Cloning Method”, is a valued method for generating targeting vectors or modifying E. coli chromosomes. Gary Stevens, CEO of Gene Bridges GmbH, commented: ‘We are very pleased to add such a major player as Takeda to the list of companies using the technology in Japan. Their decision shows that Red/ET recombineering is the technology of choice in DNA engineering’. Gene Bridges is represented in Japan by the distribution partner Funakoshi and will be exhibiting at BIO Japan 2008 World Business Forum at Yokohama, Japan on October 15-17. Red/ET is a revolutionary method for DNA engineering. Recombineering with Red/ET allows cloning, subcloning, and modification of DNA at any chosen position. It permits precise engineering of DNA molecules of any size, including very large ones such as BACs or the E.coli chromosome. Recombineering DNA using Red/ET has a number of advantages over conventional methods: — Independent of restriction sites — No size limits — No unwanted mutations — Rapid Red/ET Recombineering is one simple and powerful tool to modify plasmids, BACs, and even E.coli chromosomes.