NEW YORK, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- MetaMorphix, Inc. of Savage, Maryland has been named by Scientific American magazine as a Business Leader on the 2004 Scientific American 50 -- the magazine's annual list recognizing outstanding leadership in science and technology.
Said Editor-in-Chief, John Rennie: "Scientific American believes strongly that the best hope for a safer, healthier, more prosperous world rests in the enlightened use of technology. The Scientific American 50 is our annual opportunity to salute the people and organizations making that possible through their outstanding efforts as leaders of research, industry and policymaking."
Selected by the magazine's Board of Editors with the help of distinguished outside advisors, the Scientific American 50 spotlights Research, Business and Policy Leaders in various technological categories. MetaMorphix, Inc. has been named Business Leader in Agriculture because of work over the last year in livestock genomics.
Edwin C. Quattlebaum, Chairman and CEO of MetaMorphix said: "To be named as a Business Leader in Agriculture on the Scientific American 50, with its singular stature in the world of science and technology is a great honor. We are delighted to be recognized for our work on building our extensive database of SNP markers and on completing, to our knowledge, the first association study in a livestock species, beef cattle."
MetaMorphix, Inc. has established research and development programs to develop and commercialize tools to identify cattle bearing traits that satisfy consumer demands for consistency and quality in beef. This past year, MMI identified and characterized a dense map of novel genetic markers based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in beef cattle using its GENIUS Whole Genome System(TM). The Company then conducted a whole genome association study in a large population of commercial beef cattle at a feedlot and discovered specific regions in the cattle genome that associate with desirable beef traits. Over fourteen million genotyping assays were generated during the extensive research program.
Announced today, the Scientific American 50 appears in the magazine's December issue, arriving on newsstands November 23. The complete list of those companies and individuals honored may also be accessed on the magazine's website at http://www.sciam.com/. Scientific American 50 winners will be honored November 16 at a celebration taking place at the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City. Past Scientific American 50 winners for 2003 have included Roderick MacKinnon, Professor Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics (2003 Research Leader of the Year, as well as winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Chemistry); Burt Rutan, Scaled Composites (2003 Aerospace/Business Leader) and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former World Health Organization Secretary General (2003 Policy Leader of the Year.
About Scientific American
Founded in 1845, editorial contributors to Scientific American included over 100 Nobel laureates, among them Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Francis Crick, Stanley Prusiner and Harold Varmus. Scientific American, Inc. is a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, a U.S. subsidiary of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, a privately held international media corporation operating in more than 40 countries. In addition to Scientific American, Holtzbrinck Publishers includes the book publishing houses Farrar, Straus & Giroux; W.H. Freeman; Henry Holt and Company; St. Martin's Press and Tor; the academic scholarly publishing company Palgrave U.S.; the College Publishing Group of Bedford Freeman Worth; and the distribution company VHPS.
About MetaMorphix, Inc.
Founded in 1994 and based in Savage, Maryland, MetaMorphix, Inc. is a privately-held life sciences company that uses the code of life DNA to improve the global food supply and human health. In livestock, the Company helps customers produce higher quality, nutritious meat more efficiently; and in healthcare, discovers and licenses targets to pharmaceutical companies that develop therapies for better management of metabolic and muscular degenerative diseases. For more information on MetaMorphix, see: http://www.metamorphixinc.com/.
MetaMorphix, Inc.CONTACT: Mary Ellen DeFrancesco of MetaMorphix, Inc., +1-301-617-9080,med@metamorphixinc.com; or Media: Elizabeth Ames of BOLDE Communications &Public Relations, Inc., +1-212-727-1680, eames@boldepr.com, for MetaMorphix,Inc.