Overview

Founded in 1995, LifeSpan Biosciences specializes in the profiling and localizing of gene expression in human diseases in order to help pharmaceutical companies go from genes to drugs. The company uses a molecular pathology method for localizing and profiling gene expression.

It employs antibodies and its bank of normal and pathological tissue specimens to measure G protein-coupled receptors. With that information LifeSpan has created a relational database that provides GPCR expression data with high-resolution digital images for each cell type in the tissues and diseases studied.

LifeSpan offers immunohistochemistry services to localize proteins of interest and in situ hybridization services to provide mRNA transcript localization.

The company also has a human tissue bank consisting of normal and diseased human tissues from all major organ systems in different areas, including the brain and central nervous system, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, head and neck tissue, kidney/urinary tract, musculoskeletal, reproductive system, respiratory and skin and soft tissue.

The company has a grant from the National Institute on Aging to produce a database of aging-related gene expression.

Partners

The GPCR expression database is the basis for a number of partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis AG, American Home Products Corp. and Aventis Pharma AG. The DrugTarget database contains immunohistochemical data for G protein-coupled receptors, ion channels, protein kinases, nuclear receptors, protein phosphatases, phosphodiesterases, proteases and transporters.