NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Horizon Discovery today announced a non-exclusive deal to license intellectual property from Stanford University related to the use of a proprietary serotype of adeno-associated virus for commercial applications involving homologous recombination in gene editing.
The technology was developed by Mark Kay at the Stanford School of Medicine and is an artificial serotype of AAV. Known as AAV-DJ, it transduces a broader range of mammalian cells than any naturally occurring AAV serotype, which will allow Horizon to target an increased range of cell types, the Cambridge, UK-based firm said. In combination with the firm's existing license to use recombinant AAV from the University of Washington, Horizon is the only source of this mechanism for gene editing, it added.
Earlier this year, Horizon launched its Genassist range of gene editing kits and reagents that enable "easier, robust implementation" of both rAAV and CRISPR gene editing experiments.
Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.