Philadephia and Boston--(March 16, 2015)--The Wistar Institute, an international leader in biomedical research, and Kerafast Inc., developers of an online platform that facilitates accessibility to unique bioresearch materials from laboratories across the globe, today announced Wistar's partnership in the Kerafast Fellows Program.
The program aims to provide scientists with real-life experiences in the technology commercialization field, an exciting, dynamic and increasingly competitive discipline. Wistar's dedicated Kerafast Fellows benefit from learning from both academic and industry perspectives, as the position is overseen by Wistar and Kerafast's business development teams. In addition to the Kerafast Fellows component, the collaboration adds value to Wistar's expanding research enterprise by making critical research reagents readily available to other academic researchers through Kerafast's online platform, sales of which will support Wistar's ongoing and future research programs.
"Kerafast promotes access to rare and unique research reagents by facilitating a community of both Providing and Procuring laboratories that work towards the cure of disease," said Dr. Robert Bondaryk, CEO. "We are extremely proud to have The Wistar Institute as a partner in the Kerafast Fellows Program and as our 115th member of our community of Providing institutions."
"The Wistar Institute-Kerafast partnership exemplifies the importance of having creative, flexible, mutually beneficial academia-industry relationships that can deliver far more value than arm's-length royalty-payments. Together, we recognize the long-term benefit of investing in quality, real-life training for the dedicated next generation of technology commercialization professionals," said Heather Steinman, Ph.D., M.B.A, Wistar Vice President for Business Development and Executive Director, Technology Transfer. "We are thrilled to join Kerafast's Fellow partnership and applaud Kerafast for their progressive thinking and commitment to scientific advancement on a global scale."
Over the coming months, research materials such as monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies and cell lines from The Wistar Institute will be added to Kerafast's online collection and available for purchase through a user-friendly and straightforward research-use-only "click license."
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About Kerafast, Inc.
Since its founding in 2011, Kerafast has partnered with >100 prominent academic research institutions internationally that provide thousands of rare and unique 'Reagents for the Greater Good' for the benefit of the scientific community working toward the cure of disease in 47 countries on 6 continents. Visit kerafast.com for more information.
About The Wistar Institute
The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in oncology, immunology, vaccine and infectious diseases. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the country, Wistar has long held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. Wistar Science Saves Lives. On the Web at http://www.wistar.org.