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Cellumen Partners With Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation to Develop New Assays for Early Treatment of Alzheimer's

Posted on: Tuesday, 30 September 2008, 09:01 CDT

Cellumen, Inc. today announced an agreement with the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) to apply Cellumen's Cellular Systems Biology (CSB) technology to create a cellular model of Alzheimer's disease.

The main objective of the partnership is for Cellumen to develop a panel of CSB assays, as well as biosensors of key protein:protein interactions, that reveal the activity of multiple targets and pathways implicated in Alzheimer's disease in an intact, functioning cellular system.

"Our alliance with the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation allows Cellumen to implement its Cellular Systems Biology expertise to enable lead discovery for Alzheimer's disease," says D. Lansing Taylor, Ph.D., CEO of Cellumen. "We have the opportunity to revolutionize the treatment of this complex disease by providing pharmaceutical companies with the necessary tools to identify novel chemical modulators of the AD systems biology. Our ability to use the cell as an integrated, interactive network of genes, proteins, and metabolites sets us apart, and enables us to address this unmet medical need."

"Cellumen is on the cutting edge of building cellular models of disease, thus accelerating the discovery process for systems-based diseases such as Alzheimer's," says Howard Fillit, M.D., Executive Director of the ADDF.

About Cellumen

Cellumen is the leading innovator in cellular systems biology (CSB(TM)) solutions providing the most accurate predictions of drug efficacy and safety, thus reducing failure rates and cutting development costs. Cellumen's CSB solutions are driving Discovery Toxicology by addressing the full complexity of disease and safety. Leading global organizations, such as the Mayo Clinic, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., the EPA, FDA, NIH, and top pharmaceutical companies, partner with Cellumen. Cellumen is a partner company of Safeguard Scientifics. Other investors include Novitas Capital, the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, and Innovation Works. For more information about Cellumen, please visit www.Cellumen.com.

About Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation

The ADDF is an affiliated public charity of the Institute for the Study of Aging (ISOA), a private foundation founded by the Estee Lauder family in 1998. The charity was established in 2004 to enable the public to work with us in advancing our common mission of supporting scientists pursuing drug discovery research for Alzheimer's disease, related dementias and cognitive aging.

Source: Business Wire

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