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Sigma-Aldrich and Atlas Antibodies Announce the Release of 2,000 New, Highly-Validated Prestige Antibodies

ST. LOUIS, Aug. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sigma-Aldrich (Nasdaq: SIAL) today announced the addition of over 2,000 antibodies to its line of Prestige Antibodies(TM). These antibodies are developed by the Human Proteome Resource and are commercially available through an exclusive partnership with Sigma-Aldrich and Atlas Antibodies. As part of a keynote HUPO 2008 Conference lecture given by Mathias Uhlen, Professor of Microbiology, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) inStockholm, Sweden, the new antibodies were announced as the latest additions to the Human Protein Atlas portal. Initially consisting of 1,800 antibodies, the portfolio has grown to over 3,800 antibodies directed against 3,600 genes. The goal of this project is to produce several thousand antibodies per year and at least one antibody to all 22,000 non-redundant human proteins by 2015. This latest batch of antibodies will be available inEurope immediately and is expected to be available September 1st inthe United States and in other international markets.

"The expansion of the Human Protein Atlas dramatically advances Sigma-Aldrich's antibody offerings," said Dr. David Smoller, President of Sigma-Aldrich's Research Biotech Business Unit. "By providing high quality, highly-validated antibodies, we are addressing one of the largest obstacles faced by the proteomics and cell biology research communities."

Prestige Antibodies are highly validated for specificity and are designed to have low cross-reactivity to other human proteins. Each Prestige antibody is accompanied by 576 tissue immunohistochemistry (IHC) images and 118 cell and cell line immunocytochemistry (ICC) images. These images, as well as immunofluorescence (IF) and western blotting (WB) data, are publicly accessible via the Human Protein Atlas (http://www.proteinatlas.org). Prestige Antibodies are optimized on a single protocol and are tailored for high throughput operations, providing the potential for significant time and cost savings for researchers.

Sigma-Aldrich is committed to building antibody content for life science researchers through collaborations and an appreciable expansion of its internal antibody production. Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership with AbD Serotec, a Division of MorphoSys, to design, produce and distribute unique recombinant research antibodies using MorphoSys's proprietary HuCAL GOLD technology. Sigma-Aldrich recently entered into a five-year collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF) to develop optimal cell lines for the production of monoclonal antibodies.

Prestige Antibodies(TM) are available at http://www.sigma.com/prestige, where customers can search or browse for available antibodies by specific gene name and ID, or by keywords.

About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich is a leading Life Science and High Technology company. Its biochemical and organic chemical products and kits are used in scientific and genomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, the diagnosis of disease and as key components in pharmaceutical and other high technology manufacturing. The Company has customers in life science companies, university and government institutions, hospitals, and in industry. Over one million scientists and technologists use its products. Sigma-Aldrich operates in 36 countries and has 8,000 employees providing excellent service worldwide. Sigma-Aldrich is committed to Accelerating Customer Success through Leadership in Life Science, High Technology and Service. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its award-winning website at http://www.sigma-aldrich.com.

About Atlas Antibodies: Atlas Antibodies was founded in 2006 by researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) inStockholm and the Rudbeck Laboratory, Uppsala University in Uppsala,Sweden. Atlas Antibodies will handle the production, marketing and sales of the antibody products developed and validated in the Human Proteome Resource (HPR) Center. The Human Proteome Resource (HPR) Center is performing a systematic exploration of the human proteome with Affinity (Antibody) based Proteomics, combining high-throughput generation of affinity-purified (mono-specific) antibodies with protein profiling using tissue microarrays. The Human Proteome Resource (HPR) Center is located in Stockholm and Uppsala,Sweden and is running the Swedish Human Protein Atlas (HPA) program. The HPA program generates expression and localization patterns of proteins in a large portion of both normal and cancer human tissues and organs resulting in the antibody-based profiling presented in the publicly available Human Protein Atlas (HPA) (http://www.proteinatlas.org). The HPA vision is to enable the systematic generation of quality assured antibodies to all non-redundant human proteins and to use these reagents to functionally explore human proteins, protein variants and protein interactions.

Cautionary Statement: This release contains forward-looking statements relating to future performance, goals, strategic actions and initiatives and similar intentions and beliefs and other statements regarding the Companies' expectations, goals, beliefs, intentions and the like, which involve assumptions regarding the Companies' operations and conditions in the markets the Companies serve. The Companies do not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich

Tags: ,MTC,HEA,BIO,CHM,JVN,PDT,TDS,MO-SIAL-Atlas-Antibds

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