Ezose Sciences has entered an agreement with Merck, through a subsidiary, to collaborate on biomarker discovery research in the field of diabetes. The collaboration seeks to identify glycans, the complex carbohydrate component of glycoproteins, which can play a role in health and disease.

The research will make use of Ezose’s proprietary GlycanMap technology platform and focus on the identification of changes in glycan patterns on post-translationally modified proteins from human subjects. This work will build on a series of collaborative studies previously conducted with Merck.

“Ezose is committed to enabling the adoption of glycomics into everyday biomedical research, including the important field of biomarker discovery,” said Kiyoshi Nagata, Ph.D., chairman and chief executive officer of Ezose.

Glycomics is a natural complement to genomics and proteomics, but it has traditionally been hindered by the lack of practical high-throughput and quantitative technologies. Ezose’s proprietary GlycanMap platform addresses this need by combining, in an automated 96-well format, high-throughput glycan enrichment with specialized MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry and custom bioinformatics to both structurally identify and quantitate glycans present in complex biological samples. Such glycans can serve as novel biomarkers to aid in the development of drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tests, including companion diagnostics.