Cygenia GmbH was founded in March 2014. We have established methods for various epigenetic biomarkers which are continuously further developed. Cygenia is the first company to provide this kind of service. Most of the assays have been designed at RWTH Aachen University Medical School in Aachen, Germany (patents pending). Cygenia addresses particularly scientists and clinicians. The results are provided in a ready-to-publish format. Cygenia GmbH is also very open to all kinds of scientific cooperation on these assays or beyond. You can find additional legal information here.
Our customers
Our customers are clinicians and scientists from academia and instustry. Their countries include e.g. Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Swiss, Great Britain, Israel, USA, Canada, Brazil, and Japan.
Management
Prof. Dr. Dr. Wolfgang Wagner is Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Cellular Engineering at RWTH Aachen University Medical School (Germany). He studied Biology and Medicine in Bonn (Germany), Norwich (England) and Biel (Switzerland). From 2002 to 2009 he worked as intern and research assistant at the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, at Heidelberg University and as post-doctoral fellow at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). In 2009 he was appointed as University Professor at RWTH Aachen – initially supported by the Stem Cell Network NRW.
Epigenetics and DNA methylation
All cells of an organism share the same DNA sequence, but each cell type expresses only a limited set of genes that govern the specific cellular function. This diversity is achieved by reversible modifications on the DNA strand. One of these epigenetic modifications is DNA methylation. It occurs predominantely at cytosine-guanine dinucleotides (CpGs), controlling the accessibility of DNA regulatory elements and determining whether specific genes are transcribed or silenced.
How is DNA methylation analyzed?
For epigenetic diagnostics, it is important to provide the highest precision for the DNA methylation level at individual CpG sides. Cygenia has established robust assays based on pyrosequencing to specifically analyze the relevant regions. The results are then integrated into mathematical models to combine the predictive power of several CpG sites.