Metahelix Life Sciences has inked a pact with Sigma-Aldrich for a plant biotechnology research initiative. Under the pact, Metahelix will assist in developing applications data for Sigma-Aldrich's plant bioscience product line and provide expert technological guidance regarding its usage. The pilot phase of the partnership would be for a year.
Bangalore-based Metahelix is a leader in plant biotechnology research. The US-based Sigma-Aldrich is a global leader in high value laboratory supplies to the biotechnology industry. It is keen on increasing its services to the growing plant biotechnology industry in Asia, particularly India and China. The efforts of this collaboration will occur in Metahelix's existing facility, located adjacent to Sigma-Aldrich's manufacturing and distribution centre in Bangalore.
Strategically, Sigma -Metahelix partnership would enable the former to reach out to plant biotechnology customers in Asia and also provide them with value added and superior customer service. Metahelix, on the other hand would benefit with the exposure to the entire range of Sigma's plant biotechnology products for its research and development programmes, Dr Gautham Nadig, head, research & development, Metahelix Lifesciences told Pharmabiz.
Metahelix would provide application data support in plant sciences for Sigma's products in the research biotechnology range. The support would include generating data on various product applications, creating new product applications, technical support to Sigma on specific queries from their customers and assistance to the company in developing new products and increase the number of offerings for applications in plant biotechnology.
The team at Metahelix to be engaged in the Sigma Aldrich project would comprise a senior scientist with required support from research associates and technicians.
"The plant biotechnology market is growing rapidly in Latin America and Asia as bio-fuels and the rapid expansion of urban centres drives increased demand for higher productivity crops. This partnership with Metahelix is expected to enable us to support our customers with practical guidance by a firm that works with a number of different species of plants," said Susan Riley, director, international business, Sigma-Aldrich.
"We will benefit from visibility of new tools available to develop our commercial offerings in the plant bioscience area," informed Dr Nadig.
Sigma-Aldrich serves the plant biotechnology research market with a variety of genomic and proteomic solutions, including whole genome amplification and RNA purification kits. Its leading Extract-N-Amp plant PCR technology significantly reduces the amount of time required to extract and amplify genomic DNA from plant tissue, facilitating rapid screening.
In fact, Sigma-Aldrich's SpyLine plant mRNA capture kits allow for the isolation of mRNA and performance of RT-PCR in a single 96-well PCR plate incorporating Oligo (dT) primers, eliminating transfer steps and increasing throughput. The company's Spectrum Plant Total RNA Kits succeed where most protocols fail, employing patent-pending lysis and binding chemistry to purify total RNA from plant tissues that contain high levels of secondary metabolites.