Cerep Selected by the SGC as a Preferred CRO to Provide Screening and Profiling Services on Epigenetic Targets
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The Structural Genomic Consortium (SGC) and Cerep have announced that Cerep has been selected by the SGC as the worldwide-preferred provider of screening and profiling services for the discovery of small molecule chemical probes and drug candidates on epigenetic targets.
Epigenetic targets are proteins that regulate gene expression without changing the DNA sequence. In recent years, epigenetics has developed into one of the most dynamic areas of biological research with an increasing number of drug discovery programs in cancer, inflammation, metabolic and neuropsychiatric diseases.
Cerep anticipates drug screening on these targets to increase significantly in coming years. The number of human epigenetic targets is over 500. Already the SGC has purified more than 250 of them and has developed assays for over a hundred.
Under the terms of the agreement, the SGC and Cerep will collaborate to produce epigenetic proteins and to develop and publish assays suitable for rapid and robust high throughput screening and profiling of compounds on these targets.
Cerep will offer these services to the entire community of scientists in the public and private sectors from its laboratories, including a new lab to be built in Toronto.
Thierry Jean, CEO of Cerep declared: “We are very happy and proud to have been selected by such a renowned organisation as the SGC and by its pharma partners. We are delighted to be given, through this collaboration, the opportunity to expand our offer to include families of epigenetic targets. A significant part of our R&D budget in 2011 and 2012 will be dedicated to the development of new assays for epigenetic targets, in partnership with the SGC. Our goal is to become the preferred provider of services in this field further solidifying our position as the leader in screening and profiling services. We are confident our partners will strongly benefit from the quality of our new panel in epigenetics.”
Aled Edwards, CEO of the SGC looks ahead: “I am so excited about our partnership with Cerep, a company that is held in such high regard in the sector. This open access collaboration will allow us to transfer our scientific advances into the hands of scientists around the world as quickly as possible.”
