BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Paradigm's a priori knockouts

December 16, 2002 8:00 AM UTC

Knockout mouse company Paradigm Therapeutics plc says its ability to start with a gene and work towards medicinal chemistry differentiates it from other players in the space. Paradigm, which raised £12 million ($18.9 million) last week, was spun out from the University of Cambridge's Wellcome CRC Institute in the summer of 1999.

Focusing on known genes, Paradigm uses in silico methods to identify mouse orthologs to human genes of interest. Using mice, the company excises selected wild type genes with a proprietary vector and reinserts a mutated form of the gene containing lacZ, according to Mark Carlton, director of operations. When the knock-in tissue is stained, lacZ acts as a marker and every cell expressing the mutated protein comes up blue...