CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – March 23, 2017 – PRLog — Addgene announces Alnylam and New England Biolabs® (NEB®) as founding sponsors of Addgene’s new Viral Service launched in late 2016. Addgene’s nonprofit mission is to accelerate research and discovery by improving access to useful research materials and information. The organization is now providing scientists with ready-to-use viral samples derived from the Addgene plasmid collection. These sponsors have recognized the impact of open materials sharing and are supporting the mission to improve materials access and collaboration.
“Addgene is extremely grateful to these generous sponsors for their willingness to help scientists,”
Alnylam is a silver sponsor of the new Viral Service. Their major donation enables Addgene to scale more rapidly to meet the pressing need for our services in the academic scientific community.
New England Biolabs is known not only for providing the highest quality reagents and technical support for molecular biology applications, but also, much like Addgene, for having been created “by scientists for scientists”. NEB is a bronze sponsor of the new Viral Service. “New England Biolabs and Addgene share many of the same corporate beliefs and values, particularly as it relates to enabling and supporting scientists. As such, we are very pleased to be able to offer our support to this latest service from Addgene that will hopefully accelerate research that uses viral vector technologies,”
The Viral Service catalog currently consists of lentivirus and adeno-associated virus (AAV) preparations with new samples being added regularly, thanks to our sponsors and partners. The Addgene lentivirus collection includes many CRISPR tools. The AAV collection currently contains primarily chemogenetics tools, but optogenetic tools will be available in the coming months.
Virus production can be a frustrating process that requires a large investment of time and resources for labs that don’t have experience with it. With the help of our sponsors, Addgene hopes to reduce this frustration and get researchers to the experiments they’re interested in faster. Viral preparations undergo rigorous quality control testing at Addgene, and are supplied ready-to-use, in order to accelerate research. At the same time, Addgene is establishing a knowledge base for the processes of viral production and testing, in order to provide educational resources and experience to scientists, should they decide to produce the virus on their own.
About Alnylam
Alnylam is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference, or RNAi. The company is leading the translation of RNAi as a new class of innovative medicines. Alnylam’s pipeline of investigational RNAi therapeutics is focused in 3 Strategic Therapeutic Areas (STArs): Genetic Medicines, with a broad pipeline of RNAi therapeutics for the treatment of rare diseases; Cardio-Metabolic Disease, with a pipeline of RNAi therapeutics toward genetically validated, liver-expressed disease targets for unmet needs in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases; and Hepatic Infectious Disease, with a pipeline of RNAi therapeutics that address the major global health challenges of hepatic infectious diseases. Founded in 2002, Alnylam maintains headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information about Alnylam’s pipeline of investigational RNAi therapeutics, please visit www.alnylam.com.
About New England Biolabs
Established in the mid 1970’s, New England Biolabs, Inc. (NEB) is the industry leader in the discovery and production of enzymes for molecular biology applications and now offers the largest selection of recombinant and native enzymes for genomic research. NEB continues to expand its product offerings into areas related to PCR and qPCR, gene expression, sample preparation for next generation sequencing, synthetic biology, glycobiology, epigenetics and RNA analysis. Additionally, NEB is focused on strengthening alliances that enable new technologies to reach key market sectors, including molecular diagnostics development. New England Biolabs is a privately held company, headquartered in Ipswich, MA, and has extensive worldwide distribution through a network of exclusive distributors, agents and seven subsidiaries located in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the UK. For more information about New England Biolabs visit www.neb.com.
About Addgene
Addgene is a 501(c)3 nonprofit biorepository dedicated to facilitating scientific discoveries by operating a plasmid library for researchers. The repository contains over 52,000 plasmids contributed by 3,100 research labs around the world. Over a half million plasmids have been distributed to more than 85 countries by Addgene – with 11,000 plasmids currently shipping each month. Addgene also provides ready-to-use AAV and lentivirus preparations of commonly requested plasmids as a service to scientists – saving them time and providing thorough quality control. By authenticating, storing, archiving, and distributing plasmids, virus, and their associated data, Addgene is creating a lasting resource for research and discovery scientists around the world. For more information, please visit www.addgene.org.