Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (PRWEB) November 28, 2012
Attagene Inc. today announced that it has been awarded a new contract that extends and expands the company's collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the ToxCast™ program.
Attagene will receive up to $53.4 million over the next five years for testing up to 513,000 samples using its proprietary pathway profiling platform, the FACTORIAL™. This is a dramatic increase from the previous $4 million contract awarded by EPA to Attagene in 2007.
"This new agreement shows that we have developed a very productive relationship with the EPA,” said Alex Medvedev, Ph.D., Director of Research at Attagene. “Under the previous contract we have evaluated over 2,000 ToxCast chemicals by assessing their impacts on 46 transcription factor families and 25 nuclear receptors. These data strongly validated the utility of FACTORIAL™ technology”, Medvedev said. “Under the new and expanded contract, we will screen up to 513,000 samples.”
Attagene will also substantially expand the number of screening assays under the new contract. ”So far, we used two FACTORIAL™ assays for the ToxCast program,” said Sergei Makarov, Ph.D., President and CEO of Attagene. “The new contract involves six new assays that expand the FACTORIAL™ platform to primary cells and metabolically active co-culture systems,” Makarov said. “And we are particularly proud of our in vivo FACTORIAL™ assay that enables screening the compounds in the mouse liver .”
The new contract will bring Attagene closer to its ultimate goal of delivering a comprehensive test system that allows decision-makers to assess the full spectrum of potential toxicities and prioritize chemicals for more detailed toxicological evaluations. The large-scale screening contract will greatly expand the FACTORIAL™ reference database allowing Attagene customers to better understand biological activities and predict toxicities of their compounds.
About the ToxCastTM Program The U.S. EPA ToxCastTM Program is using novel test systems to assess the potential toxicity of environmental chemicals. The goal of ToxCastTM is to develop "toxicity signatures" predicting the possible adverse health effects. (http://www.epa.gov/ncct/toxcast.)
About Attagene Attagene Inc. is a contract research organization located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The company offers unique screening services for the evaluation of biological activities and prediction of potential toxicities of a broad range of compounds, including drug candidates, agricultural ad industrial chemicals, cosmetics, and nanomaterials. Founded in 2001, Attagene Inc., has established a leadership position in the development and application of pathway profiling technologies. For more information go to (http://www.attagene.com).