The feedback in cellular response will prove valuable to researchers primarily within cancer research as a tool to compress overall drug discovery time. Currently, it takes on average, 12 years, for an experimental drug to progress from lab to the market.
Only five in 5,000 compounds that enter preclinical testing make it to human testing. One of these five tested in people is approved
The Pathway Profiler is a new service that measures cell-based signalling cascades, specifically cell communication pathways.
It uses paired state independent and phospho-specific antibodies to monitor the level and status of critical components of signal transduction cascades. Upstate also makes available reagents, which cover pathways activated by extracellular and environmental stimuli.
The cellular readout capability created enable researchers to elucidate the bio-signatures of cell signalling inhibitors for the treatment of disease, identify key cell signalling pathways activated by various stimuli and understand which biological signalling pathways are mis-regulated in disease.
By assessing drug effectiveness at various concentrations on multiple targets in cells derived from various disease states, quantitative investigation of cell signalling in a native cellular environment is achieved. This approach allows a researcher to develop understanding of in vivo compound efficacy in a wide variety of cellular environments.
Dan Snyder, director of business development, multiplex products and services at Upstate told DrugResearcher.com: "The launch of the Pathway profile service stems from work done with the Luminex multiplex bear array platform, which we have partnered with for the last five years."
"The technology is also good in determining any off-target effects and asks questions such as "Does the compound hit any important kinases?" and "Does the compound hit other pathways?"
The Pathway Profiler is a service in which pharmaceutical firms engaged in diabetes, inflammation and angiogenesis might find useful. It is suitable for various drug discovery applications including the investigation of cell signalling pathways, Initiator, Cascade and Terminator components, and also the investigation and cellular efficacy of compounds.
Similar services currently on the market include Western Blot services provided by companies including Zyagen, BD Biosciences and Invitrogen. However Snyder was quick to point out that the Pathway Profiler differs in its ability to simultaneously measure phosphorylation of relevant signal transduction events.
In addition to the PathwayProfiler, Upstate also makes available the CytokineProfiler, used for measuring cytokine expression.
The Pathway Profiler is available now with prices ranging from $35/sample (€27) to $150/sample (€115) depending on which targets are used.