Ciphergen Biosystems Inc has signed a Research and License Agreement with the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC). This agreement contains detailed workplans to pursue projects related to discoveries and samples provided by Aaron Diamond, as well as joint discoveries.

As part of the Agreement, Ciphergen retains therapeutic and diagnostic rights to discoveries made under the collaboration, with royalties paid back to ADARC.

A small percentage of HIV-infected individuals do not develop AIDS, even after many years. Those HIV-infected individuals who remain healthy are termed "non-progressors", and it is thought that a soluble factor secreted by CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes may play a role in the differing course of their disease. Thus, many researchers have attempted to identify the soluble factors secreted by the cytotoxic T cells of these special patients.

Several candidate protein biomarkers were found by Dr. Linqi Zhang (ADARC) and Dr. John Mei (Ciphergen) during a demonstration of the ProteinChip System to the ADARC, resulting in this collaboration.