Horizon Discovery expands cell-based CRISPR screening services
Horizon Discovery has announced a new B cell screening service to support the development of therapeutics for immune system diseases
5 Apr 2020
Industry news
Horizon Discovery Group plc., a global leader in the application of gene editing and gene modulation for cell line engineering, has announced the addition of an arrayed CRISPR knockout screening service for primary human B cells to its cell-based screening services.
Primary human cells, which are cells that are freshly isolated from donors, are known to be difficult to study in the lab. However, working with these cells brings scientists one step closer to healthy or diseased micro-environments, enabling them to better understand disease etiology and therapeutic mechanisms, and thereby advance drug discovery and development programs.
Horizon has already applied its gene editing and cell culture expertise to maintain the viability of primary human T cells to enable functional genomic screens and has been delivering data-rich information to customers working in drug discovery and development. The new B cell screening service, the first of its kind in the market, will enable researchers to identify genes that affect the function of B cells and examine how this impacts other immune cell types, particularly in infectious diseases, cancer, and auto-immune disorders, such as COVID-19, Burkitt’s lymphoma and multiple sclerosis respectively.
“The interest in harnessing the immune system for effective therapies continues to grow, with the global cell therapy market predicted to reach $8.21bn by 2025*," explained Terry Pizzie, CEO, Horizon Discovery. "Expanding our services to encompass screening of both primary T and B cells is another example of our commitment to apply decades of gene editing experience in support of drug discovery and development for the treatment of human disease.”
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CRISPR Screening Services
CRISPR Screening Services Horizon offers comprehensive CRISPR screening services from screen design and cell line selection to sophisticated bioinformatics analysis of the screen results. Our best-in-class CRISPR KO (knockout), CRISPRi (interference) and CRISPRa (activation) screening platforms can significantly advance our customers’ drug development programs by offering the highest quality and highest confidence in their screening results. Data analysis services, including sample preparation, Next-Gen Sequencing, and hit calling, can be provided for users of Edit-R Lentiviral sgRNA Pooled Screening Libraries. Simply provide whole cell pellets for each of your samples and we’ll do the rest. We can also help with the NGS data analysis and hit calling for data created using the Edit-R Pooled sgRNA Indexing PCR and Sequencing Primer Kits. Types of CRISPR Screen Expertise includes whole-genome and custom targeted drug resistance and sensitivity screens, synthetic lethality target discovery screens and complex phenotypic screens using a FACS-based readout. We have optimized 50+ cell lines for CRISPR screening and have completed over 300 screens to date. We offer a choice of CRISPR screen types depending on the expression effect you require: CRISPR KO screening with complete loss of gene expression provides the maximal window for phenotypic effect and high statistical power for hit discovery CRISPRi screening represses expression rather than completely knocking out the target gene and is ideally suited to study druggability and to evaluate the function of genes that when knocked-out are essential or that are amplified CRISPRa screening amplifies gene expression in its endogenous context and enables for the first time, to study activation-linked responses on a genome-wide level Dual CRISPRi & CRISPRa screening