BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - Gendaq Ltd. said its high-throughput zinc finger engineering platform is now fully operational, allowing it to create customized switches for the up and down regulation of any given gene.

CEO Tim Brears told BioWorld International, "Engineering zinc fingers involves a complex selection and engineering process. Now we have robotized it, and we can rapidly produce zinc finger transcription factors to up and down regulate any gene."

Brears said this will be an important development in the field of functional genomics. "Typically, big pharma has tens of candidate genes it is trying to elucidate the function of. By robotizing the production of zinc fingers we can speed up production, and also provide multiple switches to single genes."

Gendaq, based in London, is talking to a number of companies about using the service, and Brears expects this to bring in revenues in the short term.

The company also is developing an in-house clinical portfolio, using its engineered zinc fingers, or Z-switches, to up and down regulate genes in therapeutic applications. In another program it is developing iZ-switches, a control system for gene therapy in which zinc finger transcription factors function only in the presence of a small molecule. In addition, it is collaborating with a group in the U.S. to apply zinc finger technology to improve the characteristics of crop plants.

Gendaq raised £5.75 million (US$8.4 million) when it was formed 18 months ago around the research of Aaron Klug, of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, who discovered zinc fingers.