MUSC and Lumera to Develop Antibody Array for Protein Expression Profiling
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Lumera Corporation has announced that it has extended its collaboration agreement with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).
In partnership with Lumera scientists, MUSC researchers intend to develop an antibody array that will measure the levels and modifications of patient mitochondrial proteins. Under the agreement, Lumera will retain rights to commercialize all jointly developed intellectual property.
“Changes in mitochondrial proteins are known to be markers for certain pathologies and many adverse drug effects. The high throughput and label-free nature of Lumera’s platform enables us to develop an assay that will have significant time and cost advantages over existing technologies. In addition, we are very excited by the prospects of identifying new biomarkers,” said Dr. Craig Beeson, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at MUSC and the Principle Investigator on this project.
“We are obviously thrilled to be extending this agreement,” said Dr. Timothy Londergan, Bioscience Business Unit Director at Lumera. “Professor Beeson’s vision for this project highlights the world class nature of the science being pursued at MUSC. And while academically interesting, this project has implications across pharma that are significant.”
Biomarkers are important to pharmaceutical manufacturers because they are often clear indicators of a diseased state and adverse drug effects.
The biomarker market opportunity is expected to grow dramatically over the next several years. Business Insights, a market research firm, forecasts that the $5.4 billion biomarker market that existed in 2005 will quadruple to an estimated $21.1 billion in 2012 fueled by growth in proteomics and metabolomics biomarker discovery.
