NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Agilent and SomaLogic said today that they have entered an agreement to expand access to Somalogic's SOMAscan protein biomarker discovery platform by placing it in select academic and contract research centers.
Somalogic has been offering the aptamer-based platform, which uses custom Agilent microarrays, out of its laboratory on a fee-for-service basis.
"This agreement will greatly enhance our current microarray offerings by expanding them into the rapidly growing proteomics market," Jacob Thaysen, vice president and general manager of Agilent's Genomics Solutions Division, said in a statement.
The SOMAscan platform uses SomaLogic's Slow Off-rate Modified Aptamer, or Somamer, affinity reagents to simultaneously quantify 1,129 protein analytes. These Somamers – essentially short strands of DNA – bind to protein targets in a sample of interest. They can then be quantified via microarrays, with the quantity of a given Somamer corresponding to the quantity of its target protein.
According to SomaLogic, the platform can work with samples as small as 50 μL and with a throughput of roughly 1,000 samples a week.
Financial and other terms were not disclosed.