Ambion Licenses City of Hope Technology for Expressing siRNA from PCR Products

Austin, TX, July 22, 2003 – Ambion, Inc., announced it has been granted an exclusive worldwide research market license from City of Hope National Medical Center and Beckman Research Institute for technology detailed in a patent application covering technologies for expressing small interfering RNA (siRNA) from PCR products.

RNA interference is a major advance in genomic research that allows researchers to quickly and reliably down-regulate the expression of specific genes in living cells. Voted the top scientific breakthrough of 2002 by the journal Science, RNA interference technology is greatly accelerating the functional characterization of genes for drug discovery and basic research efforts.

In human and other mammalian cell systems, RNA interference is induced by siRNA. siRNA can be introduced into cells directly, or it can be expressed from DNA constructs introduced into cells. The latter method has an advantage in that it can be used for long-term studies. The technology for expressing siRNA from linear PCR products greatly accelerates the process for preparing these DNA constructs. The technology permits researchers to quickly prepare siRNA expression cassettes without cloning or sequencing, which means that they can rapidly test different cassettes for optimal activity in their experimental system. Those PCR products that effectively induce gene silencing can then be cloned into vectors for long-term studies of gene function.

Ambion offers a range of siRNA-related products and services, including a custom siRNA synthesis service, validated pre-synthesized siRNAs, kits to enzymatically synthesize siRNA, siRNA expression vectors, and transfection reagents. The PCR based siRNA expression cassette technology is an important addition to this product line.

Dr. Matt Winkler, CEO of Ambion said, “Allowing researchers to create siRNA expression cassettes by PCR will greatly advance the rate of siRNA research. Ambion is pleased to expand our siRNA product line with Dr. Rossi’s PCR technology.”

About Ambion, Inc.
Ambion, Inc., is a market leader in the field of RNA-based life science research and molecular diagnostic products. Ambion maintains this leadership role by consistently developing innovative products for handling, preserving, isolating, detecting and measuring RNA. These products are used for research in areas such as molecular biology, cell biology, microbiology, drug discovery, genomics and molecular diagnostics.