Montana State University offers six new antibodies for licensing

Researchers at Montana State University http://tto.montana.edu have developed six mouse monoclonal antibodies available for licensing to interested companies and entrepreneurs.

Monoclonal antibodies can be used for the detection of highly expressed proteins and be useful for detecting changes in protein structure.

Acting as part of the body’s army, antibodies are proteins generally found in the blood that detect and destroy invaders, like bacteria, viruses, insect venom and other toxic mate rials.

Antibodies are useful tools the immune system uses to combat pathogens, but scientists can also use them to conduct a variety of experiments.

Antibodies bind to complementary antigens. An antigen is the site on a pathogen or undesirable protein. An antigen is the lock to the antibody’s key – when the two match up, the antibody triggers its immune response.

The six MSU antibodies target various human neutrophils including gp91phox, p22phox and CAP-18.

Interested companies and entrepreneurs can license the new technologies by contacting Nick Zelver with the MSU Technology Transfer Office at (406) 994-7868, http://tto.montana.edu or by e-mail at [email protected] . MSU requests that interest be expressed in writing by August 29, 2008.

To date, MSU has licensed 142 technologies developed by faculty. Eighty-eight of those licenses are with Montana companies.

To access these and other MSU technologies, visit: http://tto.montana.edu/technologies

Contact: Nick Zelver, MSU Technology Transfer Office, (406) 994-7868 or [email protected].

http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=6062