St. Louis, Missouri
August 17, 2005
Chlorogen, Inc. has
acquired an exclusive license to chloroplast transformation
patents held by Rutgers,
The State University of New Jersey. These patents, developed at
the Waksman Institute,
give the company broad freedom to operate in the field of
chloroplast transformation technology (CTT)(TM).
In 2002, Chlorogen acquired an
exclusive license to the earliest patents related to CTT. The
Rutgers patents complement and enhance foundation patents
already acquired by Chlorogen and give Chlorogen exclusive
access to the earliest and broadest patents in the field of CTT.
The combined patents cover a wide range of plant applications -
dicots, monocots, lower and higher forms of plants, green and
non-green plant tissue.
"We are very pleased to have
obtained this exclusive license," said Dr. David N. Duncan,
President and CEO of Chlorogen. "These important patents
complement and enhance the patent estate upon which our company
was founded. We have a very strong intellectual property
position."
The agreement also gives
Chlorogen limited rights to some future discoveries from CTT
research at Rutgers.
"This opportunity to
commercialize promising technologies developed at Rutgers can
result in products for the public good as well as a mutually
beneficial relationship with Chlorogen," said Bill Adams,
Director of Rutgers Office of Corporate Liaison and Technology
Transfer.
CTT is unique in the arena of
plant biotechnology in that new genetic material is introduced
into the cell chloroplasts rather than the cell nucleus. This
provides productivity and environmental advantages over nuclear
transformation.
Productivity is greatly
enhanced because plant cells contain only one nucleus but about
100 chloroplasts, which contain about 100 copies of the plant's
total genetic structure. Therefore, CTT can produce about 10,000
copies of an introduced gene in a single cell as opposed to only
one or two via nuclear expression.
CTT has an environmental
advantage because chloroplasts are inherited maternally. This
means that they are not functional in pollen and therefore are
not transferred via pollen to conventional crops or other
sexually compatible plants in the environment.
Chlorogen, based in St.
Louis, MO, is committed to producing plant-made proteins for use
in the treatment and prevention of human diseases. In addition
to developing its own pharmaceutical pipeline, the company is
pursuing collaborative arrangements for other applications, such
as food and feed, biopolymers and defense.
Established in 1766, Rutgers
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and New Brunswick/Piscataway, Rutgers offers more than 280
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The university is home to 29 degree-granting schools and
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With 320,000 living alumni, Rutgers graduates are major
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