Integral Molecular, a company specializing in membrane protein reagents and services, announced that the U.S. Patent Office has issued an important patent to protect Integral Molecular’s technique for producing lipoparticles, a nano-scale technology.
Lipoparticles enable the production of highly-concentrated membrane proteins with their original shape for drug discovery and antibody applications, with special focus on membrane protein targets, including transporters, ion channels and G protein-coupled receptors.
The U.S. Patent Office issued the US Patent No. 8,158,130, Doms et al., to the University of Pennsylvania on April 17, 2012. The issuance of this new patent signifies a continuation of an earlier patent covering the composition of lipoparticles. The exclusive global licensee of these two patents is Integral Molecular. Other patents associated with the lipoparticles are still pending.
Integral Molecular provides tailor-made lipoparticles with customized membrane proteins and ReadyReceptor lipoparticles that transport rapidly and comprise pre-validated high-concentration membrane protein targets on a fee-for-service model. Every batch of lipoparticles is tightly controlled for quality, and offered with technical protocols such as ELISA binding assays, biosensor assays and antibody screening for related applications. It is possible to biotinylate or fluorescent label the lipoparticles for specialized applications.
Integral Molecular’s Director of Research and Development, Dr. Joseph Rucker, who is also an inventor on the patent, stated that lipoparticles enable the concentration and control of intricate membrane proteins as basically soluble proteins. The company’s exclusive lipoparticle production and purification technique offers the ability to produce high-purity and high-stability membrane protein reagents, which are suitable for in-depth protein characterization, high-throughput screening and antibody discovery.
Source: http://www.integralmolecular.com