GENEART AG Receives Major Contract from Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics within the BMBF Joined Project

REGENSBURG, GERMANY--(Marketwire - June 04, 2009) -


- Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics awards GENEART a  major
contract for the production of genes and gene variants
- Expected order volume is approximately EUR 300,000
- The genes delivered will be used within the Mutanom Project
- Goal of the Mutanom Project is to research the effects of mutations
in the genotype and their relevance for genetic diseases

GENEART AG, global leader in Gene Synthesis and specialist in the field of Synthetic Biology, received a major order from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Molecular Genetics. GENEART will produce the required genes and gene variants for the project "Mutanom - Systems Biology of Genetic Diseases" funded by the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) over the next two years. The expected order volume will be around EUR 300,000.

Goal of the Mutanom project, which includes the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, the German Cancer Research Center and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine as well as partners with expertise in the area of clinical development, is to research the effects of variations (mutations) in the human genotype (genome). For their research the project partners require a large number of gene variants, which will be rationally designed and then produced by GENEART. Initially, project research will concentrate on those mutations, which are known to be relevant to certain diseases, i.e. cancer. The knowledge gained is then expected to be used directly for the development of innovative diagnostic and treatment strategies. The Mutanom Project is an integrated network of the medical genome research, which is financed by the National Genome Research Network.

"We are pleased that the MPI for Molecular Genetics selected GENEART for this project. Gene synthesis allows our customers simple and flexible access to any required gene sequence. The knowledge gained from sequencing projects and subsequent analyses using bioinformatics can thus be verified in the lab with only short time lags. GENEART technology thus provides researchers the opportunity to reach goals faster and more cost efficient compared to traditional approaches of molecular biology", said Prof. Dr. Ralf Wagner, CEO and CSO of GENEART AG.

Additional information on the Mutanom Project can be found under www.mutanom.org.


For further inquiries, please contact:

Dr. Karoline Stürmer
GENEART AG
Josef-Engert-Str. 11
93053 Regensburg
Germany
Phone: +49-(0)941-942 76-417
Fax: +49-(0)941-942 76-711
ir@geneart.com
www.geneart.com

Frank Ostermair
Better Orange IR & HV AG
Haidelweg 48
81241 Munich
Germany
Phone: +49-(0)89-8896906-10
Fax: +49-(0)89-8896906-66
info@better-orange.de
www.better-orange.de

Legal Information

This document may contain estimates, prognoses and opinions about company plans and objectives, products or services, future results, opinions about these results or opinions leading up to these results. All these projections into the future are subject to risk, uncertainty and unforeseeable change outside the control of the GENEART Group. Many factors may lead to actual results, which considerably deviate from the given projections for these results.

About GENEART AG:

In 2000, GENEART entered the gene synthesis market and has since become the global market leader. Today, the company is one of the leading specialists in the Synthetic Biology field. Experts at GENEART provide key technologies for the development and production of new therapeutics and vaccines. Customers also take advantage of GENEART services to customize enzyme attributes, such as the attributes of enzymes used as detergent additives, and to construct bacteria, which produce complex biopolymers or break down polymers, such as synthetics, petroleum components, etc. Our production and service spectrum spans a wide range, from the production of synthetic genes according to DIN EN ISO 9001:2000, to the creation of gene libraries in the combinatorial biology, to the development and production of DNA-based biologically active substances. GENEART AG in Regensburg (Germany) and the subsidiaries GENEART Inc. in Toronto (Canada) and GENEART Inc. in San Francisco (USA) employ more than 190 people. GENEART is listed on the German Stock Exchange.

About Mutanom Projekt:

Funded through the NGFN Plus Research initiative. The IG Mutanom aims to characterise the functional consequences of somatic mutations and to develop models that predict the outcome of such genetic alterations on a molecular pathway level, cellular and organism level. From very early on in this project our results will be translated into the clinical and Public Health sector with the goal to define new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. At the beginning of the project our effort will concentrate on characterising "driver" mutations (i.e. mutations that occur in cancer due to selective pressure) that already have been selected from databases and from the scientific literature, which will be characterised in close collaboration among the different subprojects. The consortium has complementary expertises in the fields of proteomics (MPIMG, DKFZ, MDC) functional genomics (MPIMG, DKFZ) modelling (MPIMG). Clinical partners and companies (e.g. Cellzome) are part of the project and will carry out mass spectrometry analysis, expression profiling, provide tissue samples or clones. Academic experts (SOCMED) will ensure from the early beginning of the project that the translational aspects of the project will be fully exploited. The aims and overall structure of the project are described under www.mutanom.org.

GENEART Receives Major Contract from Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics : http://hugin.info/136633/R/1319676/308521.pdf


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