Emerald BioStructures, a leading provider of integrated structural biology services, and SomaLogic, Inc., a diagnostics and biomarker discovery company, today announced that they have entered into a strategic collaboration for the structure-based design of chemically modified DNA aptamers ("SOMAmers") and small molecule therapeutics, based on crystal structures of important protein targets bound to high affinity SOMAmers. The research collaboration will leverage Emerald's high-throughput X-ray crystallography expertise with SomaLogic's proprietary SOMAmer technology. The characterized SOMAmers, due to their exquisite affinity for protein drug targets, will have a broad range of potential uses in diagnostics and pharmaceutical research and development.
“Emerald's structural insights will drive rapid optimization of new SOMAmers for both diagnostics and drug discovery.”
"Emerald BioStructures has a world-class track record in structure determination of complex protein-nucleic acid assemblies. As such, Emerald is the ideal partner for elucidating the secrets of multiple SOMAmer-target structures," said Nebojsa Janjic, Chief Science Officer of SomaLogic. "Emerald's structural insights will drive rapid optimization of new SOMAmers for both diagnostics and drug discovery."