March 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: SGMO - news) today announced that it has obtained worldwide exclusive rights to a novel cell-based molecular screening system developed at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the laboratory of Carl O. Pabo, Ph.D., a professor of biophysics and structural biology, an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and chairman of Sangamo's scientific advisory board. The licensed technology includes worldwide, exclusive rights to patent applications covering the selection of and identification of sequence specific DNA-binding proteins in bacterial cells, initially described by J. Keith Joung, M.D., Ph.D., Elizabeth Ramm, Ph.D., and Dr. Pabo in the June 4, 2000 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
Coincident with this agreement, Sangamo has licensed worldwide nonexclusive rights to United States patent 5,925,523 entitled ``Interaction Trap Assay, Reagents and Uses Thereof'' from Harvard University, based on an earlier version of the system developed in the Harvard laboratory of Ann Hochschild, Ph.D.
Sangamo's Universal Gene Recognition(TM) technology platform utilizes engineered zinc finger DNA-binding proteins (ZFPs) to regulate gene expression. The MIT technology complements Sangamo's existing capabilities and intellectual property in the design and selection of ZFPs that can specifically bind to target DNA sequences. Taken together, these inventions and technologies permit the design, screening, and selection of vast numbers of nucleic acid binding proteins that can recognize a broad diversity of target DNA sequences.
``The MIT license provides an important and valuable extension of our technology platform,'' said Alan Wolffe, Ph.D., Sangamo's chief scientific officer and senior vice president. ``The bacterial cell system can accelerate the process of identifying novel ZFPs in the context of a cellular environment, and broadens our ability to select ZFPs that bind to precise sites in various genomes with great specificity.''... |
