Oxford Gene Technology Joins EuroSyStem Consortium

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) has announced its participation in the recently formed EuroSyStem Consortium, a framework V11 partnership which aims to drive the generation of new knowledge about the characteristics of normal and abnormal stem cells.

The consortium brings together a network of biological and computational expertise from leading international researchers and businesses throughout Europe. It will provide facilities, resources and training to promote interaction throughout the stem cell community, and to accelerate research progress.

OGT’s role in the consortium will be to develop its single cell technology for quantitative determination of gene expression in single cells, in order to examine the dynamic range of gene expression.

This technology will then be applied to two separate cell systems in the consortium: erythropoetic stem cells with Professor Tariq Enver’s group at the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit at Oxford, and mouse embryonic stem cells with Professor Austin Smith’s group at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, Cambridge.

Professor Austin Smith, Coordinator of EuroSyStem said, “Increased possibilities for analyzing and understanding expression events in single cells is a fundamental breakthrough that will accelerate progress in basic and applied research relating to stem cells. Ultimately this progress could lead to successful regenerative medicine, and along the journey we envision improved drug development processes, enhanced disease modelling, and earlier diagnosis of specific diseases.”

Dr John Anson, Research and Development Director at OGT said, “No current method allows easy preparation and analysis of single cell gene expression levels. We are confident that our single cell technology, with its unique ‘cell population census’ approach, will revolutionize gene expression analysis, and we are excited to be given the opportunity to develop this technology for the EuroSyStem Consortium.”