Sigma-Aldrich Corporation Initiates RNAi Partnership Program With Rutgers University

ST. LOUIS, April 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sigma-Aldrich , a leader in RNAi and functional genomics, and a member of The RNAi Consortium (TRC), has announced the establishment of a worldwide RNAi Partnership Program with select academic institutions to advance functional genomics research. Scientists from participating organizations will benefit from unique access to a broad portfolio of intellectual property, early access to emerging new technologies, and special partnership pricing on Sigma's cutting-edge range of functional genomics and RNAi products.

As part of the program, researchers at participating institutions will have early access to new technologies that are developed through Sigma- Aldrich's collaborations with TRC, Oxford BioMedica and Benitec. The partnership program will also facilitate collaborations with scientists at Sigma-Aldrich to validate current and emerging RNAi technologies.

Program participants will also benefit from a dedicated support team on Sigma's functional genomics product portfolio. This extensive product offering includes the Lentivirus-based MISSION(TM) TRC shRNA libraries, targeting more than 15,000 human and mouse genes, activated lentiviral particles, custom siRNA, and qPCR reagents.

"The RNAi Partnership Program provides researchers with cutting-edge products in functional genomics, access to key RNAi-related intellectual property, and dedicated technical support," said Keith Jolliff, Director of Strategic Marketing. "Our aim is to accelerate the rate at which the scientific community is able to utilize emerging RNAi technologies in order to facilitate innovative approaches that create advances in both fundamental and applied life science research."

Dr. Andrew I. Brooks, Director of the Bionomics Research and Technologies Core (BRTC), a collaboration between the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and the Department of Genetics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, said: "The BRTC provides high technology expertise and high-throughput analysis using state-of-the-art platforms. Sigma-Aldrich has established itself as a leader in the area of RNAi, and I am pleased that we are a part of the RNAi Partnership Program. The benefits this membership brings are substantial, and the tools and services that Sigma-Aldrich offers are invaluable to any institution that works with RNAi technologies."

To find out more about the Program and how to become a member visit online at http://www.sigma-aldrich.com/rnai .

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 35 countries and has over 6,800 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 Web site at http://www.sigma-aldrich.com .

About TRC: TRC is comprised of principal investigators from world-class academic research institutions (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Washington University, Columbia University, and Academia Sinica) as well as corporate sponsoring institutions (Sigma-Aldrich, Novartis, Eli Lilly, and Bristol-Myers Squibb). As a scientific collaborator and distribution partner through agreement with MIT, Sigma-Aldrich is working with TRC to provide the scientific community with RNAi tools for functional genomics research specifically for gene function discovery and the study of disease. The MISSION TRC shRNA clone libraries will comprise a comprehensive collection of 150,000 pre-cloned lentiviral-based shRNA vector constructs targeting 15,000 human genes (MISSION TRC-Hs1.0) and 15,000 mouse genes (MISSION TRC-Mm1.0). Design and development of the TRC libraries is being led by the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard. For more information about MISSION shRNA clone collections, please visit us online at http://sigma-aldrich.com/rnai .

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 serves. The Companies do not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050215/CGSIGMAALLOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.orgPRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.comSigma-Aldrich

CONTACT: Sean Battles, +1-314-286-7616, or Keith Jolliff, Ph.D.,+1-314-289-8484, both for Sigma-Aldrich

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