Technology E-News Edition 1

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TouchDown BioInnovation
Bringing innovative technologies to market

TDWebsite.gifWelcome to our series of newsletters, providing insight into the latest cutting-edge technologies within life sciences. At TouchDown, we provide visibility to scientific project managers and technology officers for new innovative life science technology & services companies entering the global marketplace. Please visit our website for more details.
 
In each newsletter, we will focus on a specific therapeutic area, a particular step of the drug development or manufacturing process, or other aspect of biomedical research.
This month, we feature neuroscience and cover a range of technologies, including the Axela dotLab System, NuGEN Technologies Ovation Systems,  ATS targeted toxins and Multispan’s GPCR expressing cell lines.

Axela - Real-time Interactions.... Real-time Solutions

Axela.gifA real-time immunoassay platform, the Axela dotLab System enables quantitation of low abundance biomarkers in complex mixtures and the probing of protein complexes.

The technology, produced by Axela Inc, provides excellent sensitivity facilitating the quantitation of low abundance protein biomarkers from serum (as low as 1 pg/ml has been routinely demonstrated), yet the flexibility enables a dynamic range of up to 7 orders of magnitude. In effect, the dotLab System offers the possibility to move rapidly beyond the discovery phase into assay development and routine validation, providing more quantitative data than Western Blotting, and faster, easier assay development than ELISA. Multiplexing is also possible, enabling the detection of multiple proteins biomarkers across a wide range of concentrations from a single sample.


Currently, the dotLab platform is being used for the rapid quantitation of Neuron Specific Enolase in a research trial at the Pittsburg Children’s Hospital. Here, researchers required a rapid method to quantitate NSE from the small volumes of plasma obtainable from infants brought into the Emergency Room; NSE is being investigated as a potential indicator of silent brain injury (shaken baby syndrome) and therefore, a rapid blood-based test could provide valuable information to physcians. Further information about this study can be found in the press release here
.

TouchDown will shortly be hosting a Webinar describing the use of the dotLab System for biomarker quantitation. Please email to register your interest in attending one of our events.

An Axela brochure and a series of application notes are also available from the
website.

 

Advanced Targeting Systems - Molecular Surgery for Scientists ATS.gif


Advanced Targeting Systems (ATS) provides a wide range of targeting tools for use in scientific research. Their technology is based around the ribosome inactivating protein, Saporin, which ATS conjugate to a variety of different antibodies against specific cell surface molecules. When used in vivo or in cell culture, the Saporin-conjugated antibody binds to its cell surface ligand, becomes internalised, and the saponin inactivates the ribosme resulting in cell death.

 ATS’s products include specific lesioning agents for cholinergic basal forebrain neurons, noradrenergic and adrenergic neurons, macrophages and microglia and a pan-neuronal agent that strikes an epitope expressed on all neurons. In addition, ATS produces "second immunotoxins" (or "secondary conjugates") which allow users to convert their own targeting agents into specific cytotoxic tools. The Company also provides several neuronal and neuroendocrine antibodies.

 A range of trial-size antibodies are currently available from ATS - please visit the ATS Website for further information.

 Quarterly newsletters are also available, describing the latest trends and publications in the molecular neurosurgery field. Please email us if you wish to receive the ATS Quarterly newsletter or would like further information about the ATS product range.


Multispan - One stop shop for GPCR Drug Discovery Research

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Using their unique High-Expression (HEx™) technology platform and collection of over 320 full length GPCR cDNAs, Multispan are able to streamline the GPCR drug discovery process, bringing significant time and cost savings.

Multispan focuses exclusively on drug discovery research targeting GPCRs and have created the industry's largest collection of human GPCR clones and GPCR-expressing cell lines including the proprietary HEx™ series of High Expression cell lines. 

Futhermore, Multispan offer a range of custom services including antibody generation as well as quick turnaround GPCR compound profiling and development of functional assays assay development and compound screening.

Please
email us for further information and to discuss your GPCR-related requirements.

The full range of cell lines available at Multispan can be viewed here - Cell Line Catalog

 The robustness of their GPCR expression technology has also made development of over 180 validated cell-based functional assays possible, including assays for “difficult” GPCR families, such as Free Fatty Acid (FFA), Lysophospholipid (LPA and S1P), Prostanoid, and Metabotropic Glutamate receptors.
 

 


NuGEN Technologies, Inc.
Revolutionizing RNA Amplification and Labelling

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NuGEN’s proprietary SPIA® technology is an elegant method for linear isothermal amplification of nucleic acids. This simple, high-fidelity approach to amplification enables global genomic analysis of limited and/or compromised biological samples, overcoming the challenges of sample quality and quantity with a high degree of sensitivity and accuracy.

 Complex microarray platforms and various dissection technologies have evolved to enable analysis of highly homogenous biological samples. As a result, researchers have gained new opportunities to work with samples comprised of low numbers of cells such as laser captured microdissections, fine-needle aspirates, sorted cells, circulating tumor cells, embryonic structures, biopsies and Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) samples.  Such sources often yield extremely small amounts of RNA or DNA which can be of poor quality, adding to the difficulty in investigating these biological samples.

 In the area of Neurobiology, researchers have used NuGEN’s products to study gene expression in protoplasmic astrocytes, sorted by flow cytometry from the cortex of mice. Further details can be found in the abstract.

The NuGEN’s Ovation® Systems family of products are designed for specific applications and work together as modules to create complete workflows for gene expression analysis. This modular approach makes it easy to choose the right Ovation products for your application or preferred analytical platform, whether it’s Affymetrix, Agilent, or Illumina microarray technology, or qPCR

For more information about NuGEN Technologies' products and how they may be able to asssist in your research, please
email us.


Thank you for reading!

We hope that you found the products and services featured in our Technology e-News useful. We will be focusing on another therapeutic area in the next edition, due to be sent in November/December. If you would like to suggest technologies or therapy areas to be included, or would like further information about TouchDown BioInnovation, please email here. All comments and suggestions are welcome!

 

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