Exiqon A/S (NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen: "EXQ") announced today that the Harvard Medical School ICCB-Longwood Screening Facility (ICCB-L) has been recognized as a MicroRNA Screening Center of Excellence. ICCB-L supports investigators at Harvard Medical School, and associated hospitals and institutions, for high-throughput screening of small molecule and RNAi libraries.
MicroRNAs are a novel class of small, non-coding RNA species, which have been shown to play a major role in post-transcriptional processing of messenger RNA, including the regulation of many physiological and pathological processes, such as cellular development, cancer, apoptosis, aging, metabolic diseases, and immune responses. The external modulation of microRNA expression levels has been shown to have dramatic impact on cellular phenotype, a result which has promoted the functional analysis of microRNA to the forefront of translational medicine.
ICCB-L will provide the Exiqon LNA(TM) microRNA Knockdown Library as a screening tool for a new consortium of Harvard-affiliated investigators, coordinated by Dr. Neil Kubica of the Blenis Laboratory at Harvard Medical School. The consortium has developed multiple biological models that will be interrogated with the Knockdown Library. The Library contains over 900 specific inhibitors designed for uniform potency, made possible through the incorporation of Exiqon's proprietary LNA(TM) technology.
"My colleagues and I look forward to screening the Knockdown Library. There is a great deal of interest in our community in using miRNA knockdown reagents to study disease-related biology," says Dr. Kubica.