Invitrogen Acquires Quantum Dot and BioPixels®

Invitrogen Corporation (Carlsbad, CA) has acquired Quantum Dot Corporation and the BioPixels® business unit of BioCrystal, Ltd.

The acquisition of Quantum Dots and BioPixels® bolster Invitrogen's Molecular Probes business as the leader in advanced labeling and detection technologies. Invitrogen also announced an agreement with Georgia Tech Research Corporation to exclusively license novel "nanocluster" technology. Taken together, the combination of these acquisitions and licenses will enable Invitrogen to create new innovative products that enable life science researchers to better visualize and understand cellular processes, molecular interactions, and other factors essential to diagnosing and treating disease. Terms of the acquisitions and license were not disclosed.

"Molecular labeling and detection technologies are a cornerstone of Invitrogen's business and represent one of the fastest growing segments in life sciences. The ability to illuminate biological processes taking place, such as whether a defect in the function of a heart cell is causing a patient's heart disease, is becoming a preferred method for molecular research and diagnostic applications," explained Gregory T. Lucier, Chairman and CEO of Invitrogen Corporation. "By adding advanced nanotechnology capabilities to our existing labeling and detection franchise, Invitrogen has positioned itself at the cutting edge of this exciting field, providing innovative solutions for use by our customers and in our own research and development of novel technologies in proteomics, genomics, gene expression, and imaging."

Quantum Dot Corporation offers novel solutions for biomolecular labeling and detection that employ Quantum Dot semi-conductor nanocrystals, which emit bright light in a range of sharp colors. The unique properties of these nanometer-sized Qdot particles include excellent photostability and narrow emission spectra and brightness, making them well suited for a wide range of applications within life sciences and beyond. For example, these Qdots now enable cell biologists to monitor the division of living cells through more than eight generations, in real time, over a period of up to a week. The company also holds the broadest intellectual property portfolio in the life science industry for semi-conductor nanocrystals with more than 160 patents and applications, and has built a significant customer base that is now using this latest labeling and detection technology.

BioPixels® provides novel coatings and metal alloys for semi-conductor nanocrystals. These specially coated, fluorescent nanocrystals have been applied to multicolor labeling, sorting and imaging of cells, lateral flow immunoassays, and fluorescent inks and represent a promising technology for the development of automated assays of complex biological samples. The combination of BioPixels technology with Quantum Dot's semi-conductor nanocrystals will allow the creation of smaller, brighter, lower toxicity particles that do not blink. The acquisition of BioPixels also brings a rich intellectual property portfolio to Invitrogen in advanced labeling technologies.

The agreement with Georgia Tech Research Corporation provides an exclusive license to new metal nanocluster technology. These noble metal nanoclusters, developed by Robert Dickson and Jie Zhang at Georgia Institute of Technology, are extremely small and extremely bright fluorescent particles, comprising only a few gold or silver atoms, exhibiting unique physical and optical properties that make them particularly well suited for in vivo as well as in vitro applications. The advantage of these nanoclusters is that they are exceptionally photostable and offer up to ten times the fluorescence of semi-conductor nanocrystals, permitting true single molecule detection and representing another approach to the next-generation of high sensitivity labeling and detection applications.

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