Domainex Ltd wins biotechnology innovation award

20 Aug 2007

Product news

Domainex Ltd, a contract research organisation offering unique technology to solve expression of intractable gene targets and high quality computational and medicinal chemistry and a newly emerging drug discovery company, won the Innovation in Enabling Biotechnology Award at the 2007 UK BioEntrepreneurial Company of the Year Awards, presented by UK Trade & Investment in London on July 4th. More than 180 industry leaders attended the annual ceremony, which recognises innovation and entrepreneurship in the biotechnology industry.

Dr Renos Savva, one of the company’s founders and the CEO of Domainex, Dr Eddy Littler, received the award from Mr Andrew Cahn, CEO of UK Trade & Investment. “We are delighted to have been presented with this award, which recognises our commitment to developing new technologies for streamlining and accelerating the drug discovery process,” said Dr Savva.

Domainex Ltd has developed a unique high-throughput technology for producing soluble and stable protein fragments that are suitable for compound screening, structural biology studies or antibody production. The approach resolves the discovery ‘gap’ that exists between the vast amount of genomic information that is now available, and the accessibility of the corresponding proteins for use in target validation and drug discovery.

Dr Keith Powell, Chairman of Domainex, added, “We are a young, fast-growing London company, capable of reaching drug targets that were previously impossible to reach – and we are now in a position to move from drug target identification into drug development.”

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AntibodiesAntibodies are used in techniques such as confocal and fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry, ELISA, ELISPOT, immunohistochemistry, western blotting and immunopreciptation. Select specific antigen reactivity, high specific affinity, low non-specific binding, monoclonal or polyclonal, primary or secondary antibodies and associated conjugates such as an enzyme or dye for visualization.Genome AnalysisGenomics, the study of genomes, includes functional genomics, evolutionary genomics and comparative genomics. There are many genomic technologies such as DNA sequencing of whole genomes, computational biology and bioinformatics. DNA and nucleic acids must be isolated and concentrated from cells for analysis with kits, automated analyzers and software. Other useful technologies for studying genomics include PCR, microarrays and electrophoresis.Medicinal ChemistryMedicinal chemistry is a broad discipline encompassing the design, identification, synthesis and development of chemicals in drug discovery. It includes a number of techniques covering structural biology, synthetic chemistry and molecular biology. Technologies used in medicinal chemistry include ADME, lab-on-a-chip, high content screening and assay assembly.Compound AnalysisCompound analysis is used to discover specific compounds that could be promising candidates for pharmaceutical use. This potential is identified when compounds have the desired effect, such as interaction with a target protein, during high throughput screening.