MiTeGen Awarded $998K NIH Phase II SBIR Grant to Develop Hyperquenching Devices

Ithaca, NY, May 24, 2014 --(PR.com)-- MiTeGen LLC, a provider of innovative consumables for X-ray diffraction, crystallography and protein crystallization to academic, pharmaceutical, industrial and government researchers around the world, has been awarded a Phase II SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research program) award from the NIH (National Institute of Health) for the development of a rapid crystal cooling device (“hyperquencher”) for cryocrystallography and other sciences requiring safe, controlled, high-speed cooling of samples.

The funding to begin June 1st, 2014 and continue through until May 31st, 2016 will support development of a liquid-nitrogen-based hyperquenching cooling device based on technology developed at Cornell University and under exclusive license to MiTeGen.

“Hyperquenching technology promises to address a major source of irreproducibility influencing X-ray diffraction outcomes, to simplify the identification of satisfactory cryoprotection conditions, and to increase the throughput of structure-solving pipelines,” says Robert Thorne, Chairman and CTO of MiTeGen. “Our goal is to deliver a bench-top device that sits beside the crystal harvesting station and that every lab can benefit measurably from.”

This technology allows cooling rates achieved during plunge cooling of protein and small molecule crystals to be increased by a factor of 20 over current standard cryocrystallographic practice. These faster cooling rates allow successful ice-free cooling without penetrating cryoprotectants. In phase II, MiTeGen will develop automated bench-top devices that provides faster, safer and more reproducible crystal cooling, and that will allow for a more systematic optimization of crystal diffraction to achieve the highest resolution molecular structures possible.

“Very promising results in phase I studies showed the effectiveness of these new methods at measurably improving and controlling cryocooling rates,” according to Robert Newman, CEO of MiTeGen. “We continue to be grateful to the NIH for the financial support required to develop this promising technology into effective products for research scientists worldwide. As a result of this funding, MiTeGen will launch a new product line in the next 24 months, enabling scientists to have a greater control over the variables involved in cryocrystallography.

About MiTeGen
Because our customers’ research is important, we provide innovative tools and solutions that measurably improve the ease, reproducibility, and quality of their experiments. MiTeGen engineers, manufactures and distributes a full range of the best products for the expression, crystallization, crystal harvesting, and X-ray diffraction data collection of proteins, viruses and small molecule/inorganic compounds. Our customers include academic, medical, pharmaceutical, government and industrial laboratories in more than 45 countries.

Founded in 2004, MiTeGen is based in Ithaca, NY. More information can be found at mitegen.com.

Disclaimer:
“Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44GM101817. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.”