Bio Screening Industry News

DiscoveRx, a Leader in GPCR Assays, Launches a 30 Second Assay for Beta-Arrestin Based ScreeningWith the PathHunter(TM) Flash Detection Kit, beta-arrestin recruitment by a GPCR can now be detected in 30 seconds, permitting screens of up to 1,000,000 compounds in 48 hours. Unlike lengthy reporter gene assays, PathHunter beta-arrestin assays are direct and hence minimize the opportunity for off-target effects. A ligand-activated, GPCR-arrestin interaction combines two beta-galactosidase fragments, enabling rapid chemiluminescent detection in a homogeneous format. The kit is designed for whole class of plate readers with onboard fluidics and flash detection mode.

With the PathHunter(TM) Flash Detection Kit, beta-arrestin recruitment by a GPCR can now be detected in 30 seconds, permitting screens of up to 1,000,000 compounds in 48 hours. Unlike lengthy reporter gene assays, PathHunter beta-arrestin assays are direct and hence minimize the opportunity for off-target effects. A ligand-activated, GPCR-arrestin interaction combines two beta-galactosidase fragments, enabling rapid chemiluminescent detection in a homogeneous format. The kit is designed for whole class of plate readers with onboard fluidics and flash detection mode.

Additionally, screening campaigns can be accelerated by conducting beta-arrestin and calcium assays in the same well on same instrument, without need of cell fixation, when using instruments capable of real-time fluorescence and flash chemiluminescence. The ability to run intracellular calcium assays in combination with the homogeneous, chemiluminescent PathHunter beta-Arrestin assay helps drive the costs of primary screening campaigns down while significantly increasing the speed of compound characterization. Either run alone or in combination with calcium mobilization, with launch of the Flash Kit, GPCR Screening has now become even faster. With an expanding list of GPCR Beta-Arrestin assays (greater than 90 assays) being added to its product offering, DiscoveRx has a solution for virtually any GPCR screening campaign. Standard chemiluminescent detection for batch mode processing or flash detection for kinetic measurements, we have a solution for you! Call us to discuss your GPCR screening needs!

Founded in 2000, DiscoveRx is a privately held, venture-backed company headquartered in Fremont, California, with an additional office in Birmingham, England. The Company pioneered the use of beta-galactosidase enzyme fragment complementation in biochemical and cell based assays for discovery research, and holds extensive intellectual property in this area. DiscoveRx is dedicated to the development and commercialization of innovative solutions to study GPCRs, Kinases and other major drug target classes, and many of their innovative products have been widely adopted in pharmaceutical and biotech drug screening laboratories worldwide. The Company is also the recipient of Frost and Sullivan’s prestigious 2006 Award for Technology Innovation. This award was given in recognition for successful introduction of PathHunter(TM) cell-based assay platform and company’s overall work on intact and/or lysed cell based assays. For more information on DiscoveRx products, please visit www.discoverx.com

Scientists in the US have found a way to screen for potential drugs using just minuscule amounts of chemical reagents.

Brian Cunningham and Charles Choi at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have designed a 96-well microplate that reduces the volume of precious chemicals needed to perform a drug screening assay.

This is no run of the mill microplate. Turn it over and you will see that its bottom surface is actually an elaborate network of fluid channels integrated with biosensors.

Microplates, flat plates with multiple wells used as tiny test tubes, are used in high-throughput screening (HTS). In HTS scientists screen though thousands of chemical compounds looking for an interaction with a target protein, which is a critical part of a disease process.

Detection of these biochemical interactions without the use of fluorescent labels is desirable as it can be tricky to add these labels in a reproducible way, and sometimes just impossible at all. Optical biosensors, like the photonic crystal ones used in this microplate, detect these interactions through the change in dielectric permittivity that occurs on the surface of the biosensor when molecules attach to it.Integrating biosensors with microfluidic channels allows the scientist to reduce the quantity of chemicals they use. However, not many biosensors are capable of interfacing with a large number of microfluidic channels in parallel, especially when the biosensors and fluid channels are small, said Cunningham.

In each 12-well row within the microplate, the fluid channels form 11 analyte wells. They are gathered to a single detection region, where all 11 channels can be monitored at once. A central common well in each row serves as an access point for introduction or withdraw of reagents for the flow channels.

They plan, said Cunningham, is to increase the level of integration so that a single three by five inch photonic crystal surface can support around 2500 microfluidic channels and assays.

Sarah Corcoran

A 96-well microplate incorporating a replica molded microfluidic network integrated with photonic crystal biosensors for high throughput kinetic biomolecular interaction analysis
Charles J. Choi and Brian T. Cunningham, Lab Chip, 2007
DOI: 10.1039/b618584c

Source: Royal Society of Chemistry

A researcher at the University of Kansas Medical Center has been awarded more than $7.5 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to lead a team, including researchers at seven universities, in a collaborative effort to develop male contraceptives.

This five-year grant will establish the Interdisciplinary Center for Male Contraceptive Research and Drug Development, a multi-institutional organization that will work to develop new non-hormo¬nal, reversible male contraceptive agents for drug production.

The center will not only consist of research teams at KU Medical Center and KU-Lawrence, but also collaborators across the country at the University of Minnesota, Duke University, the University of California-San Fransisco, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Funding for the center was awarded by the Contraception & Reproductive Health Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The center will be directed by Joseph Tash, PhD, an associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology at KUMC, and associate director, Dr. Gunda Georg, Chair of Medicinal Chemistry at University of Minnesota. Tash, Georg, and a team of researchers at KUMC and KU Lawrence, have been conducting NIH-funded research, designing and testing male contraceptive agents, for more than five years.

Their work has lead to the development of some promising chemical compounds, such as Gamendazole, one of the most potent new oral anti-spermatogenic agents identified to date. Under this grant, research will continue on Gamendazole as well as exploring new lead compounds.

Tash said the group intends to take a multidisciplinary approach, focusing on several chemical compounds, and proteins that regulate testes function so that mature sperm are not produced. They are also concentrating on chemical agents that may temporarily deactivate enzymes so that sperm development is prevented or sperm are immobilized so the egg remains unfertilized. To identify new lead compounds, the center will utilize High Throughput Screening and proteomics to test hundreds of thousands of compounds.

While High Throughput Screening (HTS) technology is more common in private industry, KU is one of the few universities in the nation to have such a facility, which Tash said is important since many pharmaceutical companies have curtailed their research and development in male contraception. Without the HTS lab, screening hundreds of thousands of compounds could take years, but with the technology, screening time is dramatically reduced to weeks.

The research program in this center will go beyond identifying new protein targets involved in regulation of male fertility, and begin cutting edge drug discovery and design. The scientists involved in the research have a record of success in providing NIH with highly promising reversible non-hormonal male contraceptive agents.

This conference is focusing on the constant challenge of identifying, attracting, motivating and retaining talent in research and clinical development in order to accelerate R&D in a global market.

With fewer scientific and medical graduates annually in Europe & the USA and increasing global labour mobility, life sciences R&D is under increasing pressure to recruit, engage and develop the best R&D talent available and minimize turnover rates.

This meeting focuses on how pharma and biotechs can leverage their career development and training programs, exciting R&D projects, corporate branding, and compensation & benefits programs to enhance recruitment and retention rates in R&D and therefore increase R&D productivity.
Key topics:

• Learn how to recognise and develop the more “technically focused” talent and how to motivate and engage scientists and medical professionals in rewarding and exciting, long-term careers.
• Learn how to proactively build your R&D talent pipeline by evaluating and optimising your sourcing strategies.
• Benchmark your compensation & benefits programs to maximize your global talent attraction and retention in R&D.
• Learn where the future geographical talent pools are emerging for R&D and how to gain access to them.
• Discover how biotechs can compete with big pharma, diagnostics and medical device companies for the suitable R&D Talent

DATES:
June 28th & 29th, 2007

LOCATION
Hotel Marriott - Vienna, Austria

ORGANIZER:
Next Level Pharma.
Bratislava, Slovak Republic
URL: www.nextlevelpharma.com
Phone: +421 232 662 621
Fax: +421 232 662 622

The NHLBI-supported Annual Gene Therapy Symposium for Heart, Lung, and Blood Diseases will be held November 14-16, 2007, in Sonoma, California. Once again, this year symposium features speakers from institutions around the country. The focus topic of the 6th Annual Gene Therapy Symposium is “RNAi and Therapeutic Targeting”. Organizing Committee members include Drs. Alice Tarantal, Don Kohn, John Rossi, and Jay Hecker.

The Annual Gene Therapy Symposia are an opportunity for the best and brightest minds in the fields of gene therapy and biomedical research to converge and share enthusiasm about their work. Participants range from graduate students to senior investigators, with support provided for the attendance and presentations of students and postdoctoral fellows. Sponsorship of this event has provided vendors a unique opportunity to associate their name and product with groundbreaking research, while broadening client base and expanding brand recognition at the same time.
www.gts.ucdavis.edu

The organisers cordially invite you to participate actively by submitting abstracts for poster and/or oral presentation in the upcoming second edition of ASMC 07 in St. Petersburg being prepared by EFMC (European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry) and ChemBridge Corporation with the support of ACS and ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry, in the series of events which started with ASCMC04 in Moscow.

Out of submitted proposals, 10 communications will be selected by the International Scientific Committee for oral presentation. Selected authors will be notified by the Symposium Secretariat.

The scientific program of the International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry will encompass:

• 14 plenary lectures, presented by leading scientists from Europe, USA and Russia
• 15 invited major talks, presented primarily by highly recognized scientists from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, as well as from academia
• 10 short oral communications
• poster sessions

The scientific program will be complemented by an attractive cultural program in St. Petersburg.

The topics to be covered during this symposium include:

• New Synthetic Methodologies, Total Synthesis of Natural Products and Heterocyclic Chemistry
• Diversity- and Target-Oriented Synthesis and Chemical Biology
• Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery & Development

The program will also include a commercial exhibition and a half-day Business Mini-Symposium “Discovery Chemistry Outsourcing Opportunities in Russia”.

Abstracts can be submitted on-line using the “Abstract submission” tool. Please note that your registration is required to access abstract submission. Payment is not mandatory at this stage, but will be required for publication in the book of abstracts.

We invite you to visit www.asmc07.org for all details.

Looking forward to seeing you in St. Petersburg!

ASMC 07 Symposium Secretariat
Scientific Conference Producers
LD Organisation

Tel : +32 10 45 47 77
Fax : +32 10 45 97 19

ASMC07 in St. Petersburg is being prepared by EFMC (European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry) and ChemBridge Corporation with the support of ACS and ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry, in the series of events which started with ASCMC04 in Moscow.Out of the submitted abstract the Scientific Committee will chose 10

The scientific program of the International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry will encompass:

• 14 plenary lectures, presented by leading scientists from Europe, USA and Russia
• 15 invited major talks, presented primarily by highly recognized scientists from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, as well as from academia
• 10 short oral communications which will be selected from submitted abstracts
• poster sessions

The scientific program will be complemented by an attractive cultural program in St. Petersburg.

The topics to be covered during this symposium include:

• New Synthetic Methodologies, Total Synthesis of Natural Products and Heterocyclic Chemistry
• Diversity- and Target-Oriented Synthesis and Chemical Biology
• Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery & Development

The program will also include a commercial exhibition and a half-day Business Mini-Symposium “Discovery Chemistry Outsourcing Opportunities in Russia”.