Transposagen Recognized at Global Biotech Conference

PRLog (Press Release) - Jun 30, 2008 -
Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. based in Lexington, KY has announced that its CEO, Dr. Eric Ostertag has received the Best Abstract Award at the 6th Annual International Conference on Transposition and Animal Biotechnology.  Dr. Ostertag’s oral presentation focused on Long Interspersed Nucleotide Element 1 (LINE1 or L1) technology. L1s are sometimes called jumping genes or mobile DNA because they have the ability to move around in mammalian genomes. These elements comprise approximately 17% of the human genome. L1 retrotransposon-based mutagenesis is one technology used to create Transposagen's signature product, MutaRatTM Knockout Rat Models of human diseases. These models are used by academic and pharmaceutical researchers and are crucial for drug discovery and development.
“Being recognized by my academic colleagues at an international meeting is quite an honor,” said Dr. Ostertag.  “This award further validates the importance of Transposagen’s work to provide pharmaceutical research tools to address diseases including diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.”

Transposagen also presented an abstract on the Knock Out Rat Consortium (KORC), an organization founded by Dr. Ostertag and sponsored by Transposagen. KORC is made up of individuals and institutions interested in creating knockout rats using multiple different technologies, including L1 retrotransposon-based mutagenesis. The goal of KORC is to create at least one rat with a null mutation (gene knockout) corresponding to every gene in the rat genome using the same background strain of rat, namely Fischer (F344).

The International Conference on Transposition and Animal Biotechnology was held June 19-21, 2008 in Berlin, Germany with an objective to highlight recent advances in research on mobile genetic elements and their applications in genetics and biotechnology.

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