Protein families are certainly the core of AxCell Biosciences Corp.'s business strategy. And, the Princeton, NJ subsidiary of Cytogen Corp. intends to sell defined sets of known protein families, as arrays, for use in lead optimization in drug discovery programs. It's building an inter-functional proteomic database of human protein signaling pathways, which can be used to correlate protein pathway data with sequence, expression, tissue distribution, structural and bibliographic information that exists for that particular protein and pathway.
To measure protein interactions on a chip, AxCell recently joined forces with privately held Molecular Staging Inc. MSI, of Guilford, CT, brings to the alliance its rolling circle amplification technology, a nucleic acid amplification technology for detecting the presence of target molecules arrayed on a chip. Parent company Cytogen already has a separate, ongoing collaboration with MSI to develop ultra-sensitive diagnostic assays for prostate cancer; according to John Rodwell, AxCell's acting president and chief technical officer, the companies have already initiated work on protein chip technology. Now, they intend to develop that into a high-throughput technology for measuring protein-protein interactions....
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