LAFAYETTE, Colo., May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Dharmacon, Inc., the world’s leading supplier of innovative RNA and RNA interference (RNAi) research products, announced today an agreement to deliver a genome-wide short- interfering RNA (siRNA) library covering approximately 22,000 human genes to Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Mass. This library, the first siRNA collection targeting genes across the entire human genome, was developed using Dharmacon’s proprietary SMARTselection(TM) and SMARTpool(R) technologies. The resulting siRNA library will enable high-throughput functional genomic studies designed to identify and validate novel drug targets.
"Dharmacon’s development of the first human-genome-wide siRNA library is a significant step forward in facilitating the use of RNA interference as a major drug-discovery tool," said Leland Foster, president and chief executive officer of the Biosciences group of Fisher Scientific International Inc., which includes Dharmacon. "Millennium has a well-established history of scientific leadership and innovation in drug discovery, and we are proud that Millennium researchers have chosen Dharmacon’s advanced gene-silencing technologies for use in their drug-discovery and target-validation programs."
Dharmacon’s siARRAY(R) siRNA libraries are powerful tools for rapidly analyzing entire gene families and pathways or for conducting unbiased screens of thousands of potential drug targets. SMARTpool siRNA reagents, innovative mixtures of four highly functional siRNAs, provide potent gene silencing while minimizing off-target effects and reducing the likelihood of false-positive and false-negative results, important considerations when used in high- throughput-screening applications. This consistent high level of performance is enabling a wide variety of novel biological studies, including applications in drug discovery and development.
About Dharmacon
Dharmacon is the world’s leading provider of reliable, high-quality RNA oligonucleotides, small-interfering RNA (siRNA) and related RNA-interference (RNAi) products and technologies. Using its core expertise in chemistry, biology, bioinformatics and production, Dharmacon has pioneered a custom siRNA design service that employs its proprietary technologies for maximizing the efficiency of gene silencing, a powerful and increasingly widely used new technology based on siRNA. Dharmacon’s proprietary SMARTselection(TM) and SMARTpool(R) technologies result in potent and specific gene-silencing agents that can accelerate a broad range of life-science research. Dharmacon’s siGENOME(TM) siRNA, a comprehensive and flexible gene-silencing collection, offers guaranteed SMARTpool reagents and SMARTselection-designed siRNAs targeting all unique human genes in the NCBI RefSeq database. Founded in 1995 and based in Lafayette, Colo., Dharmacon is part of the Life Sciences division of Fisher Biosciences, a unit of Fisher Scientific International Inc. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at dharmacon.com. |
