Lynx Announces Initiation of Gene Expression Analysis Collaboration
HAYWARD, Calif., May 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lynx Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: LYNX - News) announced today an agreement with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: MLNM - News) to study gene expression in specific blood cell populations. The agreement features the application of Lynx's Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing, or MPSS(TM), technology to two areas of study. Initially, MPSS(TM) will be used to identify cell specific gene markers for a certain blood cell type. The results from this study could provide important advances in the identification of genes responsible for the formation of certain specialized cells.
In an additional study, MPSS(TM) will be applied to evaluate gene expression patterns from RNA in peripheral blood monocytes (PBMCs) in response to treatments with specific compounds. These data could provide information on treatment-related gene expression potentially leading to a greater understanding of drug efficacy and safety.
"We consider MPSS(TM) to be the ultimate tool for gene expression studies because it provides quantitative data for virtually all genes in a sample," said Kevin Corcoran, President and Chief Executive Officer at Lynx. "We believe that MPSS(TM) offers a virtually unlimited dynamic range that provides statistically robust data for low abundance transcripts as well as the most highly expressed genes and yields comprehensive quantitative profiles of gene expression in cells or tissues of interest and produces bankable, digital data."
"These are particularly exciting projects as we believe they will confirm the value of comprehensive expression profiling in medicinal chemistry studies and provide further evidence of the value of MPSS(TM) in drug target discovery in target-poor disease areas," said Dr. Tom Vasicek, Vice President of Business Development at Lynx. "We look forward to working with the Millennium scientists who have extensive experience with expression profiling technologies in drug discovery and development."
About Lynx
Lynx is a leader in the development and application of novel genomics analysis solutions that provide comprehensive and quantitative digital gene expression information important to modern systems biology research in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and agricultural industries. These solutions are based on Megaclone(TM) and MPSS(TM), Lynx's unique and proprietary cloning and sequencing technologies. For more information, visit Lynx's web site at www.lynxgen.com. |
