Hyderabad, India – Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - The winners of the maiden edition of the Genomic Pioneer Awards (GPA) were announced at the HUGO’s 13th International Meeting on the Human Genome on September 30, 2008. The Genomic Pioneers Award winners are Dr. Sylvie Chauvaux, Asst Professor, Institut Pasteur, Paris for Europe; Dr. Srikanta Kumar Rath, Scientist, Genotoxicity Laboratory, Central Drug Research Institute for India; and Dr. Juergen Pipper, Senior Scientist, Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Singapore for the Asia-Pacific region.

Anu Acharya, CEO, Ocimum Biosolutions, says “The Genomic Pioneer initiative is a part of our strong corporate social responsibility program through which we reach out to our community. This initiative aims at empowerment at grassroots level to foster improved Industry-Industry & Academia-Industry collaboration to support global biotech pursuit for bringing improved, affordable healthcare and therapeutics.”

“Microarrays have been instrumental for genome-wide association studies and clinical biomarker discovery programs. Genomic Pioneer Award is an effort to promote research in the use of cutting-edge technologies that speed up such discovery programs.” says Ashwin Sivakumar, Ph.D, Director Marketing & Alliances, Ocimum Biosolutions.

Dr. Sylvie Chauvaux, winner of the Genomic Pioneer Award for Europe region, says, “It is truly a great honor for me to receive the Genomic Pioneer Award. This is a welcome award and I sincerely appreciate it, especially for my work on the transcriptome analysis of Yersinia pestis, the agent of plague, when grown in human plasma. This study provided evidence that many of the genes associated with virulence in animal models of plague were regulated in a similar manner in human plasma.”

Dr. Srikanta Kumar Rath, the GPA winner for India, stated that he was very happy on winning this award and also said that he along with his team would persist in their efforts in toxicogenomic studies to enable discovery of potent and safer drugs.

“It is an honor to receive the Genomic Pioneer Award. Our line of work is multidisciplinary in nature and I would like to share this recognition with all the people who have contributed to this project over the last couple of years. Prizes like the Genomic Pioneer Award will further encourage young scientists to make an impact in the Genomics field,” says Dr. Juergen Pipper, the recipient of Genomic Pioneer Award for Asia-Pacific region.

About Genomic Pioneers Award:

The purpose of the Genomic Pioneers Award is to recognize excellence and outstanding contribution to the field of genomics using integrated state-of-the-art approaches. The first edition of the Genomic Pioneers Award focuses on excellence in using oligonucleotides in advancing genomics research. Synthetic DNA oligonucleotides now have wide spectrum of applications ranging from being used in fundamental research, as diagnostic reagents to discovery of pharmaceutical compounds, making it an integral part of any scientific research. The award carries a prize of €3000 (EU), INR 1,00,000 (India), and USD 3000 (Asia Pacific).

To know more about the Genomic Pioneers, please visit:
http://ocimumbiosolutions.com/thoughtleaders/2008/10/announcing-the-winners-of-genomic-pioneers-award/

About Ocimum Biosolutions:

Ocimum Biosolutions (and its subsidiary company Gene Logic) is a leading integrated genomics company providing comprehensive genomic reference databases, life science lab information management solutions, GLP-compliant microarray services and essential research consumables. Over 2/3rd of the top 25 pharma companies, leading research institutes and emerging biotech companies worldwide have chosen Ocimum as their preferred outsourcing partner and utilize Ocimum’s expertise for understanding underlying mechanisms of diseases, discovery and prioritization of gene targets and biomarkers.

Gene Logic is a preferred outsourcing partner for providing integrated biorepository and genomic services for several global pharmaceutical companies. Gene Logic’s global infrastructure, standardized procedures, capacity, expertise and highly skilled staff support drug development programs from pre-clinical target development and toxicogenomic assessment to clinical biomarker identification and patient stratification. In creating the world’s largest commercial gene expression databases – BioExpress® and ToxExpress®, Gene Logic has expertise and capabilities that are unparalleled in the genomic services industry. Gene Logic provides multiple GLP-compliant platforms for gene expression and SNP genotyping data generation, full biorepository and genomic services support for the Genetic Alliance, which is an umbrella organization representing ~600 genetic advocacy groups. Besides providing the physical infrastructure for storing thousands of biological samples, Gene Logic provides services to assist sample accrual, IRB approvals, CRO training, sample collection, clinical data capture and management..

For more information, please visit:
www.ocimumbio.com | www.genelogic.com

Customer & Media Contacts:

Ashwin Sivakumar, PhD
Director – Marketing Alliances and Outreach, Ocimum Biosolutions
Phone: +91-40-66627200
Email: pr@ocimumbio.com

Investor Contact:

Anuradha Acharya
CEO, Ocimum Biosolutions
Email: ceo@ocimumbio.com