Ciphergen, UK University to Characterize, Validate Ovarian Cancer Biomarkers

NEW YORK, Oct. 6 (GenomeWeb News) - The University College London and its BioMedica business-incubator subsidiary have signed an agreement with Ciphergen in which the three groups will use the company's proteomic research tools in ovarian cancer research, Ciphergen said today.

Under the deal, Ciphergen will gain exclusive rights to license discoveries resulting from collaboration, the company said.

UniversityCollegeof London researchers and Ciphergen will validate and characterize ovarian cancer biomarkers and discover potential biomarkers from more than 1,000 patients and 4,000 control samples with the company's Deep Proteom, Pattern Track Process, and ProteinChip tools, the statement said. The research will attempt to distinguish ovarian cancer from other gynecologic masses using protein biomarkers, and will validate markers as described in the August 2004 issue of Cancer Research, the statement said.    

The principal investigator of the project, Ian Jacobs, manages the United Kingdom Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening, a 200,000-patient trial, the statement added.