Bio Screening Industry News

The humble nematode worm could prove invaluable in screening new compounds for active drugs, new research published today suggests.

Soil-dwelling nematodes have a programmed avoidance response to harmful chemicals, which they detect through nerves exposed to their environment. Scientists led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have genetically modified the worm C. elegans to make human proteins called receptors in these nerves: the modified worms detect and avoid human signalling molecules and drug candidates.

The exciting results, reported today, 20 July 2006, in the open-access journal BMC Biology, promise a simple assay that can be used to screen thousands of compounds for activity against human proteins - a foundation of drug development.

“The worm is a great tool to understand biology,” said Dr Michelle Teng of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a lead author on the report. “Because we understand it so well it has a simple well studied nervous system the role for each nerve has been mapped in detail. We also have a good understanding of the signalling mechanisms in nerves that drive the responses.”

“We showed that the biochemical response of the receptors emulated that seen in humans. It is just that, in the worm, the effects of that response are to make them crawl away from the chemical stimulus. This simple response could be used to test many unknown drug candidates.”

Medicines often interact with receptors, which are ’sensors’ at the surface of cells. The team introduced the somatostatin receptor (Sstr2) and the chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) in the nerves that respond to environmental cues. Somatostatin is a hormone that mediates a wide range of activities in humans and chemokines play an important role in the immune system. The CCR5 receptor used is also the gateway that HIV/AIDS virus uses to enter cells. Both receptors belong to a receptor family called GPCRs, which represent up to 50% of current drug targets.

The response was specific. In tests, worms responded by avoiding somatostatin or chemokine placed in their paths only when the appropriate receptor was made in the appropriate nerves.

“We have shown that we can hijack the cellular machinery of the worm so that the human receptor proteins drive the avoidance response,” explained Dr John McCafferty, Principal Investigator at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and senior author. “We chose two receptors with widely differing functions in humans. The responses were specific to the compounds we added and could be inhibited in the same way a response in humans could be inhibited.”

The worms could also be desensitized by pre-exposure to somatostatin or chemokine: desensitization is an important part of normal human response, because it ensures that our receptors can recover for a fresh round of stimulus. This is the first time that activation has been programmed in these nerves and the team have shown that the human receptors integrate into the worm signalling machinery.

“Systems exist already to study the response of cells in test-tubes to added compounds,” continued Dr McCafferty. “However, because these are soil-dwelling worms which feed on bacteria, we could test crude samples for drug candidates.”

Together, these results make us very optimistic that these models will be widely applicable and that development of a high-throughput system is feasible.

The team used a rapid sorting system to isolate the genetically modified worms. Although for this study, worm responses were scored under the microscope, automation could be integrated to achieve a higher rate of testing.

The worm model can also help to define which regions of a novel compound are important for its biological effect, which can be crucial for producing effective drugs. The team were able to use the worm assay to identify four important building blocks within somatostatin which are known to be necessary for its effect.

“These results show the power of simple organisms such as the worm to help us not only in our understanding of biology but also in the search for new ways to improve healthcare,” said Professor Ronald Plasterk, Professor of Developmental Genetics at the University of Utrecht and Director of the Hubrecht Laboratory, in the Netherlands. “It is a nice irony of history that the worm was chosen for biomedical research by Sydney Brenner forty years ago in Cambridge, only a few miles from the Sanger Institute. Then twenty years ago John Sulston started to make a gene map of the animal, and eventually read its sequence as the first of all animal genomes.”

“And now a new generation of researchers again in the Cambridge area uses it to test candidate drugs that are immediately relevant to human health.”

ST. JOSEPH, Mich., July 20 /PRNewswire/ — GeneGo, Inc., a leading provider of software and databases for systems biology and pathway analysis and Elsevier MDL, a leading provider of scientific content, informatics framework and workflow applications for pharmaceutical research, announced the collaboration. The latest version of GeneGo’s data mining platform MetaCore 4.0 will be seamlessly integrated with the MDL(R) suite of databases via the DiscoveryGate(R) content platform. Researchers will be able to identify drug targets and bioactive compounds via pathway analysis and retrieve comprehensive information on their synthesis, biological effects, commercial availability and relevant literature within one application.

Web site: http://www.genego.com/

Sunnyvale, CA, July 18, 2006 – Labcyte Inc. today announced that it is one of the first high-tech manufacturing companies in Sunnyvale to be certified as a Green Business. The Green Business Program is a voluntary program that recognizes businesses that commit to full compliance with environmental regulations and take steps to prevent pollution, reduce waste, and conserve resources.   The certification recognizes the continuing commitment of Labcyte to conserve resources and reduce waste and pollution.

“Labcyte is committed to protecting the environment.  We have implemented practices that decrease energy and water consumption. We have also reduced the amount of waste going to the landfills. In addition to being good for the environment, these practices reduce our operating costs,” said Keith Love, Vice President of Manufacturing and coordinator of the Green Business initiative at Labcyte. “Furthermore, customers who use our “touchless” liquid dispensing instruments can eliminate a significant amount of plastics tips waste and cost, while improving accuracy, for a triple win.”

“Our internal Green Business programs are a natural extension of the advantages of the products we provide to the life science R&D community”, said Dr. Elaine Heron, Chief Executive Officer of Labcyte.  “The users of our Echo™ 550 and 555 liquid handling systems report saving $100,000 to $300,000 annually through reduced amounts of plastic consumables and solvents.  Our highly reproducible direct transfer of low nanoliter quantities uses focused sound energy to move liquids.  This enables researchers to transfer their valuable test materials directly and accurately into their assay plates without touching them, avoiding the generation of contaminated materials from the transfer process.  So, rather than doing an intermediate dilution that requires tips, additional plates and large quantities of solvent, this simplified procedure is not only better for the environment, but has also been shown to provide better results because compounds are often adsorbed on the surfaces they contact during the intermediate dilution.” (See our website, http://www.labcyte.com/aboutus/technology/index.html, for more details.)

Among the many environmentally sound practices at Labcyte are:

•   Water conservation: connection to reclaimed water for outdoor uses

•   Energy conservation: occupancy sensors in all offices and conference rooms

•   Solid waste reduction and recycling: minimizing packaging, and purchasing recycled products when possible

•   Pollution prevention: preventing contamination of storm drains, using environmentally-friendly cleaning products

•   Encouraging alternatives to single-person automobile commuting including bicycling, public transportation, and telecommuting

Labcyte was assisted in the process of obtaining the Green Business Certification by one of the company’s investors, the Bay Area Equity Fund.  This is a double bottom line fund managed by JPMorgan which seeks to invest in companies that can deliver market-rate venture capital returns while enabling social and environmental improvement in the San Francisco Bay Area’s low and moderate income neighborhoods.

About the Green Business Program

The Green Business Program is a free, voluntary program that encourages businesses to go beyond compliance with environmental laws and regulations to implement sustainable practices in business operations, thus improving the environment and the economy of Santa Clara County.  The Green Business certification process addresses surface water quality, stormwater protection, pollution prevention, and community education.  To achieve certification, businesses must meet environmental compliance requirements and, in addition, must implement measures that go beyond regulatory requirements.  Assessments and conservation measures are tailored to fit each business’ operations.  More information is available at www.ReduceWaste.org.

About Labcyte Inc.

Labcyte Inc., headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, provides plastic laboratory supplies, as well as the new Echo 555 liquid handler and the award-winning Echo 550 liquid handler. The Labcyte acoustic liquid handling technology has broad applications in the life science including dispensing equipment, assay systems, particle manufacturing, reagent multispotting for MALDI imaging applications, and living-cell transfer devices. Labcyte has 26 issued U.S. patents, 1 issued European patent and additional international filings. For more information, visit the company’s website, www.labcyte.com

Acoustic liquid handling transfers compounds directly to assay plates eliminating intermediate dilutions and the concomitant loss of compounds by adsorption to tips and well surfaces. Pharmaceutical researchers have proved that these losses can lead to failure to identify potential drugs. Elimination of the consumables associated with intermediate dilutions also results in savings that approximate the cost of the instrument in one year.  Labcyte Inc. provides two instruments that use ADE—the Echo™ 550 liquid handler, which is used in seven of the 10 top pharmaceutical companies, and the recently introduced Echo 555, which was designed for UHTS laboratories requiring very high throughput.

Sunnyvale, CA, July 11, 2006 – Labcyte Inc. announces the issuance of U.S. Patent 7,070,260. This patent describes the use of deionization of microplates and reservoirs to ensure improved precision and accuracy of acoustic droplet ejection (ADE) and other techniques employing the transfer of small fluid droplets.  Plastic multi-well microplates such as those commonly used in the discovery of drugs by pharmaceutical companies, often become electrostatically charged due to handling. The electrostatic charge present on either the source well or the destination for the droplet may affect the volume and trajectory of the droplet.  In particular, when using acoustic ejection of DMSO droplets, a microplate with an uncontrolled electrostatic charge, secondary or satellite droplets are occasionally seen and the volume variation seen in ADE transfers may vary by more than 25%. With the elimination of electrostatic charge on source wells and the droplet destination as described in this patent, volume variation was shown to reduce to 2% with the complete elimination of secondary or satellite droplets.

“This patent describes technology currently employed in the Echo™ 550 and Echo™ 555 liquid handlers, “ said Chief Technical Officer, Richard Ellson. “Deionization of both the source microplate and the destination microplates ensures that droplets will fly true and that there will be no cross contamination of wells from samples traveling to incorrect wells or failing to reach the destination and falling back into other wells in the source plate. Important for many users of our instrumentation is the excellent accuracy and precision of the transfer, which has been defined as ‘best-in-class’.”

“We believe that ADE practiced without this patented technology will suffer significantly in quality. Perhaps of greatest concern, when ADE is practiced without deionization, it is possible for the electrostatically charged droplets to travel to incorrect wells leading to cross-contamination and errors in analysis. Our processes

ADE transfers compounds directly from source microplates to destination assay plates where both plate types are composed of conventional well plate polymers that are prone to accumulating electrostatic charges from handling like polypropylene and cyclo-olefin copolymer (COC).  Direct transfer eliminates intermediate dilutions and the concomitant loss of compounds by adsorption to tips and well surfaces. Pharmaceutical researchers have proved that these losses can lead to failure to identify potential drugs. Elimination of the consumables associated with intermediate dilutions also results in savings that approximate the cost of the instrument in one year.  Labcyte Inc. provides two instruments that use ADE—the Echo 550 liquid handler, which is used in seven of the 10 top pharmaceutical companies as well as at leading academic and research institutions and contract research organizations, and the recently introduced Echo 555, which was designed for UHTS laboratories requiring very high throughput.

Labcyte Inc., headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, provides plastic laboratory supplies, as well as the new Echo 555 liquid handler and the award-winning Echo 550 liquid handler. The Labcyte acoustic liquid handling technology has broad applications in the life science including dispensing equipment, assay systems, particle manufacturing, reagent multispotting for MALDI imaging applications, and living-cell transfer devices. Labcyte has 26 issued U.S. patents, 1 issued European patent and additional international filings. For more information, visit the company’s website, www.labcyte.com.

ELNS & Laboratory Informatics 2006

ELNs focus day: 25^th September 2006 ● Conference: 26^th & 27^th September 2006

Master classes: 28^th September 2006 ● Le Meridien Hotel, London 

The 6^th Annual ELNs meeting has been designed to reflect the shift in priorities surrounding ELNs. To achieve optimum ROI on an investment you must be aware of how to bring about total integration into the hierarchy of lab informatics. Complete understanding of the wider picture surrounding ELNs, i.e. how to address financial, cultural and temporal issues as well as the practical elements of acquisition and evaluation, is crucial to realise the full potential of an electronic laboratory notebook systems. Join us for this and the first ever CENSA Global Automation Leadership Awards, presented at the conference!

For more information about IQPC and Pharma IQ, please visit our website at www.iqpc.co.uk, however, please let me know if you require any further information. Thanks in advance for your help.

San Jose, CA - July 6, 2006

Hepatitis C virus (HCV), belonging to the Flaviviridae family of positive, single stranded RNA, infects approximately 170 million people worldwide (1). The HCV polyprotein consists of structural proteins (C, E1, E2 and p7), and the non-structural (NS) proteins (NS2, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B) as a result of proteolytical cleavages of host signal peptidases; and metalloprotease and serine proteases, respectively. 

AnaSpec has developed the industry’s only HTS assay kits for screening HCV NS3/4a.  EnzoLyte^TM assay kits are specifically designed for the detection and quantification of NS3/4A protease activity at subnanomolar concentrations. They can be used in 96- or 384-well microplate format. There are three assay kits to choose from depending on what wavelength is used for monitoring the cleavage of the FRET substrate.  Convenient mix-and-read format and one-step procedure make EnzoLyte Assay Kits ideal for high-throughput screening.

EnzoLyte^TM 490 HCV Assay Kit 

Peptide substrate paired with Dabcyl (fluorophore) and Edans (quencher).  Fluorescence can be continuously monitored at Ex/Em=340/490nm.  Kit size: 500 assays.

EnzoLyte^TM 520 HCV Assay Kit 

Peptide substrate paired with 5-FAM (fluorophore) and QXL^TM 520 (quencher).  Fluorescence can be continuously monitored at Ex/Em=490/520 nm.  Kit size: 100 assays.

EnzoLyte^TM 620 HCV Assay Kit

Peptide substrate paired with HiLyte Fluor^TM TR (fluorophore) and QXL^TM 610 (quencher).  With near red emission wavelength, this FRET peptide avoids the autofluorescence interference associated with most test compounds. Fluorescence can be continuously monitored at Ex/Em=590/620nm.  Kit size: 100 assays.

References:

1.  CDC and Prevention. Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep. 47:1-39 (1998).

Washington - The United States Health and Human Services Department released another $225-million to states and cities on Tuesday to use in preparing for a pandemic of bird flu or other disease.

The allotment is the largest share of $350-million designated to help state and local governments buy supplies and fix up medical and emergency services. The first $100-million was distributed in February to identify the gaps.

“These funds will build on the work begun at the summits and help local, tribal, territorial and state public health officials as they undertake critical preparedness planning that communities must do themselves,” HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement.

HHS has stressed that state and local governments, businesses and individuals must bear most of the burden of preparing for a pandemic or biological attack. Leavitt says the federal government is not equipped to do all the work and does not have enough money.

Infectious disease experts agree that a pandemic of some sort of influenza is overdue. The H5N1 avian flu virus that has affected birds in about 50 countries is considered the most likely candidate.

H5N1 rarely infects humans but it has killed 131 people out of 229 who contracted the illness in nine countries.

Experts argue that even if a pandemic does not come, the money is well spent to shore up neglected public health services globally and a thin vaccine industry.

The US Congress has authorised $6,1-billion of bird flu funds out of $7,1-billion requested by President George Bush. Most is aimed at vaccine research and development.

The United States has also pledged to help other counties but has spent only about $71-million out of the $334-million it promised, according to a United Nations report.

The money is meant to help countries watch for flu, upgrade veterinary systems, hold vaccination drives and educate people about about animal and human hygiene.

Amman, 03 July (Petra)–Specialists, participating in a one day workshop on bird flue disease, on Monday affirmed the importance of communication strategies between health sector and mass media in the field of confronting bird flue. The workshop, organized by the Ministry of Health (MOH) in cooperation with UN ICEF and WHO, is meant to further strengthen communication and information exchange between governmental and non-governmental institutions and the concerned international organizations concerning bird flue.

UNICEF communication and media Bureau Hend Mango pointed out that since the the disease appeared on the world level, the number of cases reached 228 which lead to 130 deaths.

NEW YORK, July 6 (Reuters) - Drug maker Abbott Laboratories Inc. (ABT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and a unit of medical devices company Fisher Scientific International Inc. (FSH.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday said they would collaborate on developing new therapeutics.

The companies said the research could extend drug discovery efforts into disease targets where traditional technologies have not succeeded. The collaboration will involve a gene silencing technology, they said.

Financial terms of the agreement between Abbott and Fisher’s Dharmacon Inc. unit were not announced.

CAMBRIDGE, U.K. and WALTHAM, Mass., July 12 /PRNewswire/ — Domantis, the human Domain Antibody (dAb) therapeutics company, is the first winner of the UK Innovation in Drug Discovery & Development Award, one of three new BioEntrepreneur Awards sponsored by London First and UK Trade & Investment.
The award recognizes the contribution Domantis has made to the UK’s dominant position in the development of innovative medicine and it was announced by Andrew Cahn, Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment, at an awards ceremony held at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, UK.Domantis Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Ian Tomlinson said, “I am delighted to receive this award which highlights Domantis’ pioneering approach to developing novel therapeutics based on human Domain Antibodies. Domantis is fortunate to have a team of world-class scientists at its Cambridge, UK, facility and they are currently building a rich pipeline of novel dAb medicines to combat disorders such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and cancer. It’s a tribute to their skills and creativity that we should be the first recipients of this prestigious award and this is a particularly gratifying outcome, given the high quality of the competition.”

dAbs are the smallest functional binding units of human antibodies (IgG). Their natural stability and solubility coupled with their small size means that they can be used more widely in medicine compared with conventional IgGs. Domantis is using dAbs to build therapies that are not possible with IgGs, including dual targeting products, therapeutics targeting cell-surface receptors and dAb drugs delivered to targets in the lung via pulmonary administration.

The UK BioEntrepreneur of the Year Awards seek to recognise the best and newest innovators in the UK biotechnology sector. At the awards ceremony, the three finalists in each category gave a ten-minute presentation to the judging panel, which comprised:

Dr. Simon Best, Chairman of the BioIndustry Association (BIA)
David Owen, "retired" Chairman of Medical Research Council Technology
Judith Hills, European Head of Licensing for Bristol-Myers Squibb
Dr. Julia Curran, Investment Director, Scottish Equity Partners
Dr. Ian Gibson, MP for Norwich North

The two other finalists in contention for the UK Innovation in Drug Discovery & Development Award were Powdermed and Spirogen.

Notes to Editors

Domantis is a biopharmaceutical company developing human Domain Antibody (dAb) therapeutics to treat many diseases including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and multiple myeloma (MM). The Company has thirteen proprietary therapeutic programs and nine partnered therapeutic programs including those with Bristol Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories. Several of these programs will enter clinical trials in 2007, with further INDs being filed each year thereafter.

dAbs are the smallest functional binding units of human antibodies (IgGs), less than one tenth the size of an IgG. Their remarkable natural properties for stability and solubility coupled with their small size allow dAbs to be far more flexible therapeutic molecules than IgGs. Domantis uses dAbs as the core building block in several therapeutic strategies not possible with IgGs, including dual targeting products, therapeutics targeting cell-surface receptors, and dAb therapeutics delivered to targets in the lung via pulmonary administration. With dAbs, Domantis can build a rich pipeline of novel therapeutics that bring substantial efficacy, toxicity, convenience and cost benefits to patients across many different diseases.

The broad applicability of dAbs and their ability to quickly produce novel therapeutics has made Domantis an attractive partner for the pharmaceutical industry and it has struck deals with Bristol Myers Squibb, Peptech, Abbott Laboratories, ImClone, Tanox and Argenta Discovery whilst also attracting funding from the European Union for several therapeutic collaborations.

Monoclonal antibodies were invented in the 1970’s at the UK Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB), which has remained at the forefront of therapeutic antibody research since that time. In 1989, scientists in the MRC-LMB laboratories of Sir Gregory Winter published the discovery of dAbs. This discovery led to the creation of an extensive portfolio of intellectual property covering the development and use of dAbs, the binding domains of fully human antibodies. Domantis has exclusive licenses and assignments to these pioneering inventions for dAb products and extensive intellectual property covering dAb libraries, methods of discovery, compositions, and formulations of dAbs. As a result, Domantis is the only company capable of fully exploiting the commercial therapeutic applications of human dAbs. Sir Gregory and Dr Ian Tomlinson, world-renowned scientists from the MRC-LMB, launched Domantis in December 2000.

Sir Gregory was also a founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) plc. To date Domantis has raised $83 million from investors including Novo Nordisk, MC Life Science Ventures (Mitsubishi), 3i, Gray Ghost, Albany Ventures, MVM Life Sciences Partners LLP, ISIS and Peptech Limited. Domantis employs over 70 staff and has research and development facilities in Cambridge, UK and commercial offices in Waltham, Massachusetts, US. See also http://www.domantis.com.

For more information please contact
Robert Connelly, CEO, Domantis + 1 781 250 2833
Ted Agne, ComStrat Group +1 781 631 3117
Nicki Brimicombe, NB PR + 44 1883 732353