MorphoSys AG has announced that its research and diagnostic antibodies unit, AbD Serotec, Oxford, U.K., recently signed a licensing agreement with The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, U.K., which provides AbD Serotec with worldwide exclusive rights to commercialize the prototypic and most popular BrdU antibody clone for research applications. The agreement covers clone BU1/75 (also known as ICR1), allowing development in a range of formats suitable for various applications such as ELISA, flow cytometry, and immunohistochemistry.

Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU)–an analog of the DNA base thymidine–is a reagent commonly used in the detection of proliferating cells in living tissues and tissue samples. During DNA synthesis, BrdU can be incorporated into the newly synthesized DNA of dividing cells. Subsequent detection of BrdU incorporated into DNA using antibodies is a powerful tool for studying the cytokinetics of normal and diseased cells. In vitro or in vivo labeling of tumor cells with BrdU and the subsequent detection allows easy and rapid analysis of tumor cell growth kinetics with high accuracy.

“With this agreement AbD Serotec will become the sole supplier of this important BrdU antibody, a powerful tool to detect cell proliferation and cell kinetics assays,” commented Dieter Feger, head of AbD Serotec. “This product complements our comprehensive range of high quality cell biology reagents covering key research areas such as apoptosis, cancer, cell signaling, and cell morphology.”

This news was featured in the November/December issue of Drug Discovery & Development.