Rockland Immunochemicals Commits $1 Million to Joy Cappel “Young Investigator Awards”

Rockland Immunochemicals Inc. today announced a new annual award will be given to promising young investigators including graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, or other young scientists. This award is intended to help young investigators establish themselves in the areas of oncology, nuclear signaling, developmental biology, epigenetics, immunology, microbiology, neuroscience, signal transduction or stem cell technology. For each of the next ten years, Rockland is awarding $100,000 in total to twenty-five qualified candidates.

This award is very dear to Rockland, as it honors Joy Cappel, President and CEO for over thirty years. Ms. Cappel’s vision to help define mechanisms underlying cell function and disease through antibody targeted detection is the motivational force behind this award.

“This new venture at Rockland is very exciting as it paves the way for future collaborations between leading research institutions and our own Rockland experts. This comes at a wonderful time, as we have just expanded our facilities to accommodate stimulating and important research collaborations,” explains Rockland’s Chief Operating Officer, Richard Smith. “The tools and capabilities that we will provide to these young investigators will support their research and develop key project management and partnering skills that will advance their careers. We expect great things from the joint efforts of our scientists and these promising researchers.”

The Joy Cappel 2014 Young Investigator Award provides recipient investigators with access to Rockland’s antibody development team and products. Rockland scientists will work with recipients towards shared goals with open sharing of information and data. Successful award winners will be able to develop and characterize an antibody which meets their research objectives and includes: antigen design, peptide synthesis, antibody production, antibody purification and antibody analysis by ELISA and/or Western Blotting or similar immunoassay.

Selected scientists will work hand-in-hand with Rockland professionals to initiate polyclonal antibody development activities. Dr. Carl Ascoli, Rockland’s Laboratory Director adds, “This process will help investigators to understand the importance of establishing conditions for antibody validation a priori, to build into antigen design factors that affect antibody specificity and sensitivity, while using procedures we have developed for methods refinement.” Rockland congratulates and welcomes the first three Young Investigators chosen for the Award:

• Parham Ramezani-Rad of Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. Nominated by Principal Investigator, Dr. Robert C. Rickert.
• Christopher Oberley, PhD. Of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Nominated by Principal Investigator, Dr. Shigeki Miyamoto.
• Dr. Feng He of the University of California, San Diego. Nominated by Principal Investigator, Dr. Michael Karin.
  

For more information on the Joy Cappel 2014 Young Investigator Award, and the opportunity to apply or nominate someone, please click on the company website below.