Sigma Life Science, an innovative biological products and services business of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation,  has entered into a non-exclusive agreement for the use of CRISPR/Cas technology covered under patents held by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Under the agreement, Sigma-Aldrich is able to make, use and distribute the advanced gene editing tools for numerous research applications, including the generation of modified plant and animal models, custom cell line creation and for CRISPR/Cas arrayed and pooled genetic screening.

"This is an important step in our long-running research partnership with the Broad Institute," said Shaf Yousaf, vice president of Technology & Business Development.  "We share the Broad's passion for leading the way in research with new ideas and tools. Sigma-Aldrich's scientists have been developing genome editing reagents for years, and have been using them in our own labs to make custom cell lines for everything from cancer drug screens to ADME-Tox assays.  As both the maker and user of these reagents, Sigma-Aldrich offers a tremendous amount of expertise for guiding our customers."

This Agreement enables Sigma-Aldrich to pair its lentiviral manufacturing core competency and genome editing expertise with CRISPR to create the next generation of screening tools:  pre-designed or customizable individual lentiviral CRISPR clones and off-the-shelf or custom lentiviral CRISPR pools. The Company's first off-the-shelf offering is a collection of clones targeting the human kinome, a significant group of genes that are commonly involved in cancer and development.   

"Scientists who have screened with RNAi knockdown in the past can now quickly and easily validate their results with a CRISPR knockout experiment.  This represents a specific advantage for screening small molecules as potential anti-cancer therapeutics in the drug discovery workflow," said Yousaf.

Sigma-Aldrich is also the exclusive distributor of the Broad Institute's complete Mission shRNA and ORF libraries.