Thermo Fisher Scientific
Inc. (NYSE: TMO), the world leader in serving science, announced today that
it has established a grant program to award life science researchers more than
$400,000 in RNA-interference (RNAi) reagents used to study genes in medical
research and drug discovery.
The Thermo Scientific Discovery Grant Program will include various siRNA, shRNA
and microRNA reagents from the industry-leading Dharmacon and Open Biosystems
RNAi technology portfolios, marketed under the Thermo Scientific brand. Five
projects will be selected based on their potential to advance science and medicine.
Recent breakthroughs involving Thermo Scientific RNAi technologies include a
study to find human genes associated with West Nile virus infection, the discovery
of potential new targets for HIV drugs and identification of genes that appear
to affect the susceptibility of human cancer cells to certain chemotherapy treatments.
“Thermo Fisher is a world leader in providing tools for gene analysis,
and we have led the way in the use of RNAi technologies for scientific research,”
said Marc N. Casper, chief operating officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific. “We
have created this grant program to advance RNAi-based screening and to help
our life sciences customers accelerate their discoveries.”
The Thermo Scientific RNAi Discovery Grant Program is open to both academic
and commercial researchers, who may complete a simple application online at
www.thermo.com/RNAiDiscovery. Grant applications will be reviewed by a panel
of scientists at Thermo Fisher Scientific, and recipients will be selected based
on the merit of their projects, their screening capabilities and, most importantly,
potential scientific impact. Applications for the grants will be accepted through
September 7, 2009.
Grant award options include whole-genome RNAi screening, RNAi gene family and
microRNA libraries. The whole genome award includes membership in the RNAi Global
Initiative, established by the Thermo Scientific Dharmacon products team in
2005 to advance RNAi screening and foster collaboration among researchers. The
group now includes more than 38 world-leading research institutions. More information
on this program is available at www.rnaiglobal.org.
Posted August 13th, 2009
