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Mountain View, Calif., August 2, 2001 /PRNewswire/ SurroMed,
Inc. today announced that it has been awarded a Small Business
Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes
of Health. The funding will support development of SurroMed's
Nanobarcode[TM] identification tag technologies for use with multiplexed
immunoassays for mouse phenotyping.
Phenotyping involves quantifying the vast array of molecular
components that make up complex organisms in order to understand
interactions between genetic and environmental factors in diseases.
SurroMed is developing an integrated set of phenotyping technologies
to enable more precise diagnosis and treatment of human disease.
Existing gene knock-out and knock-in mouse strains serve as models
of human disease and facilitate study of disease progression and
monitoring of therapeutic response in preclinical drug testing.
SurroMed's phenotyping technologies are applicable for mice and
other small animals, as well as humans.
SurroMed's Nanobarcode technology uses cylindrically-shaped colloidal
metal nanoparticles, in which the metal composition can be alternated
along the length and the size of each metal segment can be controlled.
Intrinsic differences in reflectivity between the metal segments
allow individual particles to be identified by conventional optical
microscopy.
"Various capture chemistries can be attached to Nanobarcode
identification tags to bind specifically to target molecules that
can be interrogated in solution and on surfaces using conventional
bioanalytical techniques," said Michael N. Natan, Ph.D.,
SurroMed's Chief Technology Officer and the inventor of the Nanobarcode
identification tag technology.
"We believe our Nanobarcode identification tag technology
is uniquely applicable for mouse phenotyping because the nanometer-scale
tags allow for high level multiplexing of assays even with small
volumes of mouse blood," said SurroMed CEO and Chairman Gordon
Ringold, Ph.D. "We are pleased to receive this grant which
will support the development of software for Nanobarcode identification
and multiplexed immunoassays."
The SBIR program is designed to support small businesses conducting
innovative research focused on the commercialization of novel
technologies. Innovation and the potential for commercialization
are among the important criteria used by the NIH in its scientific
and technical merit evaluation process.
About SurroMed, Inc.
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, SurroMed uses its
integrated phenotyping and biological marker discovery platform
to better understand the root causes of disease and the factors
underlying patient-to-patient variations in disease presentation,
progression and response to therapy. Discoveries arising from
its research will enable improved, cost-efficient discovery and
development of therapeutic and diagnostic products. SurroMed's
phenotyping and biological marker discovery platform incorporates
advanced proprietary technologies for profiling and analysis of
hundreds of immune cell populations, proteins and low-molecular-weight
organic molecules (such as sugars, peptides or lipids) in small
volumes of blood and/or other biological samples, while maintaining
complete patient confidentiality. By capturing and analyzing enormous
amounts of clinical and biological information in a massively
parallel fashion to identify useful biological markers, SurroMed
plans to enable the precise diagnosis and effective treatment
of disease.
Contacts:
SurroMed, Inc.
August J. Moretti
CFO and General Counsel
(650) 230-1564
email: [email protected]
Noonan/Russo Communications, Inc.
Talya Gould
Account Executive
(415) 677-4455 ext.284
email: [email protected]
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