WALTHAM, Mass. – (BUSINESS WIRE) – BG Medicine Inc. (BGM), a developer of novel, biomarker-based diagnostic products, today announced the launch of the Galectin-3 Website (www.galectin-3.com) which will provide an array of research materials associated with galectin-3.
Galectins are a unique class of proteins with a relatively high affinity for specific carbohydrate compounds. Upon the tight specific binding between carbohydrate and protein, galectins display certain profound biological effects. Galectins were first described in 1994 and to date, 15 members have been identified. Accruing evidence indicates that galectins are important immunoregulatory mediators and research in the role of galectins in health and disease is rapidly increasing resulting in a new article about galectins in the scientific literature approximately every 24hrs. In particular, Galectin-3 is attracting strong interest from the scientific community with regard to its role in cardiac disease and cancer.
Users of the galectin-3 website can easily navigate to informational resources such as PubMed, which provides access to galectin-3 citations from biomedical literature, certain full-text articles, and other web-based resources.
BG Medicine has developed a new optimized assay for measurement of galectin-3 in plasma or serum and anticipates clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European authorities later in 2009 for clinical use.
BG Medicine also announced today the launch of a galectin-3 assay service for research purposes only. Researchers interested in submitting study samples for galectin-3 analysis can order such services from the galectin-3 website.
“Galectin-3 is one of the rare culprit biomarkers” said Pieter Muntendam, MD, President and CEO of BG Medicine.
“Measurement in plasma provides important information about a disease process, while experimental research has demonstrated that administration of galectin-3 can actually induce the pathology. Most biomarkers we know are bystander biomarkers – one cannot induce the condition by administering the biomarker. We expect that the availability of a robust assay will markedly accelerate our understanding of the role of galectin-3 in disease and how we can take advantage of
this for improved treatment outcomes.”
About BG Medicine
BG Medicine is pioneer in the area of biomarker-guided medicine with a focus on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel molecular diagnostics based on biomarkers to improve patient outcomes and contain healthcare costs. BG Medicine discovers biomarkers and is developing its diagnostic product candidates using its proprietary, versatile, and scalable technology platform which integrates and automates the precise measurement, analysis, characterization and interpretation of proteins, and metabolites collected from bodily fluids.