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January 20, 2008: Athena Environmental Sciences, Inc. announced today that it has signed two
licensing agreements with TEC Edmonton, on behalf of The Governors of the University of Alberta, for
their patented protein expression technologies. Protein expression technology is an integral part of
biotechnology and is instrumental to the production of several therapeutic agents. Athena has
incorporated Alberta’s new technologies into its own established protein expression systems to create
a set of proprietary expression kits. The ACES™ (AthenaES™ Complete Expression System) kits were
designed to fully encompass the entire expression process from building the plasmid vectors to recovery
of purified product. This unique approach provides everything necessary for protein expression, thus
making the process quicker and easier for the user. The first series of kits will be introduced globally
through Athena Enzyme Systems™, a division devoted to supplying research reagents for pharmaceutical and
industrial applications, on January 7, 2008.
Despite the industry’s thirty years of success in producing recombinant proteins in E. coli, there
are many proteins that cannot be produced in a functional state using traditional systems, making
them impossible to research and utilize. Traditional protein expression technology involves inducing
a bacterial strain (usually E. coli) to replicate a gene of interest, which in turn produces the
recombinant protein of interest. Extracting this protein requires lysis or breaking apart the cells,
which also releases significant amounts of contaminating proteins and DNA. Removing these
contaminants is often time-consuming and costly. Dr. Joel Weiner, and Guijin Zhang from the
University of Alberta, discovered that YebF, a protein with an unknown function, is transported to
the outside of the cells. They further found that when other proteins were linked to YebF, these
proteins could also be exported directly to the culture medium. Using this process, proteins can now
be produced which could not otherwise be made in E. coli. Further, the lysis step is eliminated,
keeping most of the contaminating protein and DNA within the cell walls, simplifying the purification
process. Difficult-to-produce proteins can now be made and recovered with higher levels of purity due
to the low levels of contaminants present in culture medium. This development allows for faster research
results, saving both time and money and introducing more possibilities for research exploration.
Alberta’s unique technology peaked Athena’s interest. “We’ve been in the protein production business for
14 years and the YebF technology has the potential to revolutionize how recombinant proteins are produced,”
says Athena’s CEO Dr. Sheldon E. Broedel, Jr. “It overcomes several technical barriers and allows for the
expression of proteins that might otherwise be impossible to obtain, a significant challenge for many of
our clients and customers.” The agreements give Athena exclusive world-wide rights to the YebF technology
and non-exclusive rights to the Membrane Targeting and Translocation System technology. In addition,
Alberta’s technologies are getting market exposure, recognition and gaining market value in being
integrated with a comprehensive series of expression kits.
“TEC Edmonton is proud to play a role in helping inventors, such as Dr. Joel Weiner, and Guijin
Zhang, bring their discoveries to the marketplace,” says Dr. David Cox, CEO of TEC Edmonton. “This
partnership strikes the cord of our business, providing a conduit for Alberta technologies to reach
beyond laboratory walls and generate commercialization success.” This integration with TEC Edmonton
expands Athena’s research reagent product lines and contract services with a proprietary set of tools
that enables easier and more reliable protein expression. The new ACES™ system developed by Athena will
initially offer two different secretory technologies that will allow users to more accurately tailor
expression to the specific attributes of their target protein. Athena plans to expand this product series
to include a wide library of plasmids and accessory products to aid in the expression process. Athena
Environmental Sciences, Inc., is a diversified biotechnology company, located in the UMBC Technology
Center in Baltimore, MD.
The company has been involved in a variety of projects including the development of biopharmaceuticals
as well as industrial enzymes, the development and manufacture of environmentally safe consumer products
and the discovery and development of anti-infective drugs. The Athena Enzyme Systems™ division of the
company has existed almost since the company’s inception in 1994. Its mission is to accelerate the
research timeline through advanced research products and contract services with an emphasis on protein
expression and purification. The new ACES™ kits will join Athena’s portfolio of over 100 research products
sold under the Athena Enzyme Systems™ brand name.
TEC Edmonton - whose name is an acronym for its goal to support Technology, Entrepreneur and Company
development - is a joint venture between the University of Alberta and the Edmonton Economic Development
Corporation. Located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Dr. Joel Weiner’s University of Alberta laboratory
investigates the assembly, structure and function of membrane proteins using bacterial anaerobic electron
transfer enzymes as the model system. The group published their findings of the YebF protein expression
technology in Nature Biotechnology in January, 2006.
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