>>RICHMOND, Calif., Nov. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: SGMO - News) today announced that it has been granted a United States patent entitled "Regulation of Endogenous Gene Expression in Cells Using Zinc Finger Proteins." The patent covers the activation or repression of any endogenous gene, in any cell, in any organism using engineered zinc finger DNA-binding proteins (ZFPs) and broadens Sangamo's patent coverage of the uses of engineered ZFPs to include delivery of ZFP Therapeutics as recombinant proteins. Similar patents have been granted or allowed in the European Union and Australia and counterpart applications are pending worldwide.
"The granting of this patent strengthens and complements Sangamo's existing preeminent intellectual property portfolio covering the design and engineering of ZFPs and their use in gene regulation," said Edward Lanphier, Sangamo's president and chief executive officer. "These issued claims cover our ability to deliver ZFPs to cells and organisms either as a gene or as a protein, whichever formulation is the most therapeutically useful and appropriate."
Zinc finger DNA-binding proteins (ZFPs) are the dominant class of naturally occurring transcription factors in organisms from yeast to humans. Transcription factors, which are found in the nucleus of every cell, bind to DNA to regulate gene expression. Though there are many kinds of transcription factors, only zinc finger DNA-binding proteins are amenable to engineering and precise targeting to a particular gene or genes of interest. Since the over-expression or under-expression of individual genes is the basis for many diseases, the ability to regulate genes with engineered ZFPs has enormous potential therapeutic benefit. Although the sequences of many therapeutically relevant genes have been patented as isolated or purified sequences, a major advantage of Sangamo's unique technology is that it regulates endogenous cellular genes and is consequently independent of such patents.
The inventions covered by this patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,824,978) were made by Sangamo scientists.<<
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