IZB MARTINSRIED/MUNICH
DNA, which has been optimised for microscopic assays using ibidi’s µ-Slides and µ-Dishes. ibidi also offers an adenoviral vector coding for LifeAct. This viral approach makes it possible to access difficult-to-transfect cells, such as primary cells.
ibidi also offers an extended, new range of cell line services in cooperation with SIRION BIOTECH , which is also a member company of IZB. Services include the provision of custom-specific stable cell pools in less than seven weeks, a clonal cell line service, and functional cell characterisation that provides customers with maximum flexibility in experimental design, strong gene expression/knockdown, and validated, functionally-tested stable cell pools. ibidi’s other products include cell-culture biochips (µ-Slides) and devices for functional, cell-based assays. The company’s extensive line of µ-Slides and µ-Dishes offers solutions for immunofluorescence and basic cell culture, plus complex assays for angiogenesis, chemotaxis, wound healing, shear stress and flow. The company also specialises in instruments such as heating and incubation units, and a unique perfusion system that provides continuous flow for the simulation of blood vessel circulation. All of ibidi’s products are designed with high-end microscopy in mind. For the third year in a row, ibidi has received a ‘Deloitte Technology Fast 50’ competition award. The Fast 50 is an annual listing of the fastest-growing technology companies in Germany.
www.ibidi.com
Cell culture partnership ChromoTek GmbH, a young IZB company founded in 2008, and Cell Culture Service GmbH, located in Hamburg, Germany, have entered into a service, distribution and
co-marketing partnership. Cell Culture Service will provide its Chromobody® cells for direct use in live cell assays. These express fluorescently labeled intracellular antibodies allowing real-time monitoring of endogenous intracellular proteins. Biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies will be offered these cell lines or transient bulk transfections of their own cell lines in assay-ready formats to enhance their drug discovery and high throughput screening capabilities. Chromobodies are single-domain antibodies that are genetically fused to fluorescent proteins to serve as functional nanoprobes in living cells. The Chromobody® technology allows for the first time the tracing of endogenous intracellular antigens and the visualisation of dynamic changes of these targets in living cells. Currently available cell lines allow the high content analysis of the full cell cycle and real time monitoring of apoptotic events. Small-molecule libraries can be screened for desired or adverse effects on a cellular level in multiwell formats.
www.chromotek.com
Personalised medicine funding launched
Another significant development for the Munich Biotech region has been the Leading-Edge Cluster Competition launched by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in 2010. In the m4 excellence cluster, biotechnology companies and academic groups are working together on about 40 research projects to develop new drugs and technologies in the field of personalised medicine. The ‘m4 – Personalized Medicine and Targeted Therapies’ programme has funding of €40 million from the BMBF, complemented by €40 million from the participating companies in more than 40 co-operative R&D projects involving industry and scientific institutions. The Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology
supports the cluster management agency BioM and some activities in the programme with an additional €12 million.
www.bio-m.org A large number of IZB companies are involved in these projects and have received funding supporting their businesses. For example, Pieris AG has received a €1 million grant to support the development of the company’s proprietary PRS-110 compound targeting c-Met, a cellular receptor that plays a key role in cancer cell growth and metastasis. The goal of the research is to delineate a biomarker strategy for early clinical development and to aid in the progression of a personalised medicine approach with PRS-110. The grant to Pieris, managed by BioM, will match the company’s funding of the PRS-110 project by underwriting its internal efforts and collaborative research with other companies and academic institutions.
www.pieris-ag.com
Another example is that of a grant to Exosome Diagnostics GmbH, a subsidiary of Exosome Diagnostics, Inc, which, together with the Department of Dermatology at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), has been awarded a €1 million grant to develop blood-based diagnostic tests from the stable RNA content accessible in plasma-derived exosomes. The grant will help fund development of exosome-based diagnostics technology to detect tumour-specific mutations in the blood from patients with malignant cancer in order to enable monitoring of disease recurrence, aid therapy selection, and possibly improve early tumour detection.
www.exosomedx.com Finally, Origenis has started the development of biomarkers to complement the preclinical in-house development of its therapeutic small-molecule inhibitors acting on LRRK2 under a two-year grant from the ‘m4 - Personalized Medicine and Targeted Therapies’ programme. LRRK2 inhibitors are expected to be useful for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other
neurodegenerative disorders. The objective of this biomarker programme is the development of fluorine-labelled, LRRK2- specific, CNS-penetrating compounds that will be used to visualise the progression of the disease in animal models of Parkinson’s disease.
www.origenis.com
More IZB companies will participate in the m4 personalised medicine programme in the future, and sp2 Inter-Active will be reporting on these developments.
IZB in Martinsried/Munich. Member companies are making significant progress in developing new products.
32 sp2 Inter-Active March/April 2012
Further information
www.izb-online.de
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