Press Release

Institut Pasteur Korea and Institute for Systems Biology Enter Into Memorandum of Understanding Agreement for Analysis of Viral Infectivity

2008-10-20
Institut Pasteur Korea, Seoul, Korea; and Institute for Systems Biology, Washington, USA. October 20, 2008.

Institut Pasteur Korea (IP-K) and Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) have entered into a memorandum of understanding to develop multi-parameter analysis approaches to study host pathogen interactions. The resulting partnership would combine ISB’s systematic proteomic and informatic approaches with the Institut Pasteur Korea’s proprietary genome wide, visual RNAi screening technology. Together with ISB’s expertise in network discovery and predictive mathematical modeling the combined approaches would provide valuable new targets to IP-K’s drug screening projects.

Gary Sweeney, Chief Scientific Officer of Institut Pasteur Korea said, “It really is the complementarities of our approaches that make this potential collaboration so exiting. Concretely, live viral infections are subjected to a visual genome-wide RNAi array with the resulting functional data being cross-connected with the proteomic interaction profile of that same infectious process. This type of approach can elucidate the mechanisms of infection to near completion.”

“We are pleased that Institut Pasteur Korea and the Institute for Systems Biology may have an opportunity to combine complementary approaches and capabilities towards complex problems in host-pathogen research,” said John Aitchison, Associate Director, of Institute for Systems Biology.


About Institut Pasteur Korea
Institut Pasteur Korea is a non-profit organization based in Seoul, South Korea. It was created in 2004 with the strategic focus of enabling technologies and therapeutic development in disease models pertaining to public health. For additional information please visit http://www.ip-korea.org.


About Institute for Systems Biology
The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is an internationally renowned, non-profit research institute headquartered in Seattle and dedicated to the study and application of systems biology. Founded by Leroy Hood, Alan Aderem and Ruedi Aebersold, ISB seeks to unravel the mysteries of human biology and identify strategies for predicting and preventing diseases such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS. ISB´s systems approach integrates biology, computation and technological development, enabling scientists to analyze all elements in a biological system rather than one gene or protein at a time. Founded in 2000, the Institute has grown to 14 faculty and more than 230 staff members; an annual budget of more than $35 million; and an extensive network of academic and industrial partners. For more information about ISB, visit www.systemsbiology.org.