Cambridge University sign agreement with biotech companies

Californian Biotechnology companies Affymetrix and ParAllele BioScience have signed an agreement with scientists at Cambridge University, who will use Affymetrix's GeneChip Tag Arrays and ParAllele's MegAllele genotyping reagents in genetic studies of type 1 diabetes.

The study utilises the new products resulting from the recent partnership between Affymetrix and ParAllele enabling researchers to perform large-scale genotyping in their own labs with their own panels of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

Professor John Todd of the University's Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation -Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory (DIL) at Cambridge is leading this research effort. His group will be the first to use a ParAllele-developed standard panel of 10,000 non-synonymous SNPs - SNPs that change the sequences of proteins - to compare genotypes between 1,000 control samples and 1,000 diabetic samples. The scientists have planned this as the first stage in the analysis of over 20,000 DNA samples already collected from diabetes patients and their relatives. The DIL is committed to sharing these samples and results with other researchers in the world-wide effort of finding new disease-associated genes for the development of better therapies and prognostic tests. The controls come from the 1958 British Birth Cohort in collaboration with Professor David Strachan of St. George's Hospital Medical School, London.

'This research project is the most exciting and important genetics experiment I've ever been involved in,' said Todd. 'We've been collecting samples for quite some time and have been waiting for a technology that would give us the genetic power we needed to commence informative studies. Using this new solution from Affymetrix and ParAllele for a genome-wide gene association study provides us with the best opportunity we've ever had to discover new disease-associated genes and polymorphisms.'

'We're delighted to offer scientists a full range of tools to analyse the genome in different ways, leading to a better understanding of disease,' said Greg Yap, senior marketing director of DNA analysis at Affymetrix. 'Our new partnership with ParAllele enables us to provide researchers with another solution for genetic association studies and complements our existing solutions for genome-wide genotyping and resequencing.'

ParAllele's MegAllele products include genotyping reagent kits and software specifically designed for use with Affymetrix GeneChip Tag Arrays and instrumentation systems. These new products offer the ability to genotype up to tens of thousands of SNPs in a single, flexible assay.

'We are pleased to be working with a pioneer such as John Todd on such an important study,' said Nick Naclerio, president & ceo of ParAllele BioScience. 'This will be the first time that any researcher has directly analysed this many potentially disease-related SNPs in such a well-characterised population. The ability to conduct studies of this scale may provide important new insights into type I diabetes.'

Using the combined MegAllele and GeneChip product, scientists can select SNPs from custom panels of 3,000 to 5,000 SNPs and standard panels of up to 10,000 pre-selected SNPs. The panel being used in the Cambridge University study is also available to other researchers worldwide. Assay design is customised and comprehensive, enabling researchers to successfully genotype more of the SNPs they want.