SelectScience
Join Free
Accelerating Science
NewsLife Sciences

PerkinElmer Launches New Assay Development Service for Advanced Cellular Science and Drug Discovery

PerkinElmer
6 Aug 2007

Product news

PerkinElmer, Inc., a global technology leader in Health Sciences and Photonics, today announced the launch of a comprehensive assay development service for high-performance, highly sensitive assays in advanced cellular science and drug discovery research.

"Whether it's developing custom assays, increasing assay densities from 96- to 384- or 1536-well, or converting outdated assay technologies to next-generation platforms, our assay development service can fast-track development of application-specific assays for pharmaceutical and research customers, saving them time and money and letting them concentrate on analyzing results instead of setting up experiments," said Richard Eglen, Vice President and General Manager of the Discovery and Research Reagents business of PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences. "The service brings together PerkinElmer's industry-leading advanced technologies, our deep expertise in high throughput screening, and our recognized commitment to service to ensure success for our customers in their important research."

Assay Development Services for High-Value Targets

The new service offers comprehensive assay solutions for high-value g-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) and kinase cell-based screening including highly sensitive, high throughput platforms such as the AlphaScreen®, AequoScreen®, DELFIA®, and LANCE® technologies.

GPCR and protein kinases actively signal and regulate several important functions within cells, presenting a wide range of therapeutic targets in areas including cancer, central nervous system disorders, cardiac dysfunction, and diabetes, making them among the most important areas of study in today's pharmaceutical and biotech laboratories.

Optimized reporter gene assays are available utilizing steadylite plus™ and britelite plus™ technologies. In addition to cell-based GPCR and kinase assays, the service also offers biochemical enzyme and radioligand binding assays on the FlashPlate® or Image FlashPlate® platforms in 384-well or 96-well formats.

The assay development service will also provide miniaturization of tough-to-automate immunoassays. PerkinElmer's AlphaLISA™ technology offers a homogenous alternative to traditional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), enabling labs to easily automate these assays for greater productivity and throughput while achieving higher sensitivity, a wider dynamic range and therefore more relevant data. The service will facilitate a seamless conversion from ELISA to this new enabling technology.

Consultative Development Process

Following scientific consultation with the laboratory, PerkinElmer will propose development and validation studies and cost estimates. The studies may include anything from initial assay formatting and feasibility, to optimization of the assay protocol for robustness, to validation of performance characteristics such as reproducibility. During this, and other milestone phases, PerkinElmer works closely with laboratories to maintain a workable balance between cost and technical objectives. PerkinElmer assay development typically takes two to four weeks. Subsequent training, assay transfer and validation at the customer site are supported by PerkinElmer's scientists.

Links

PerkinElmerCompany website

Tags

ELISAEnzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), also known as enzyme immunoassays (EIA), are used for the detection and quantification of proteins, peptides and antibodies in a sample. ELISA often comes in kit format, with pre-selected antibody pairs to detect specific proteins or biomarkers of diseases such as diabetes and obesity, or cardiovascular and neurological disorders. Detection is made possible with chemiluminescent, fluorescent or colorimetric substrates and detection instruments such as microplate / ELISA readers. Other kits available include: Enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assays for the quantification of protein-producing cells and chemiluminescent immunoassays (CLIA) kits. Find the best ELISA kits and products in our peer-reviewed product directory: compare products, check customer reviews and receive pricing direct from manufacturers.High-Throughput ScreeningHigh-throughput screening (HTS) is an automated drug discovery technique for identification of active compounds against a compound library. Use HTS readers and integrated assay preparation / analysis workstations to screen your compounds. Identify active compounds against various HTS libraries, including membranes, proteins and peptides and HTS cell lines. Find the best high-throughput screening products in our peer-reviewed product directory: compare products, check customer reviews and receive pricing direct from manufacturers.Microplate Readers / DetectorsMicroplate readers are used to automate the detection and analysis of labeled or label-free components in microplates during assays or live-cell monitoring. Microplate readers are generally distinguished by their mode of detection. Types include absorbance, luminescence, fluorescence intensity, fluorescence polarization, TRF / FRET and multimode microplate readers. Microplate readers deliver a high throughput of samples by reading multiple wells simultaneously, with the 96-well format the most commonly used. As a result, microplate readers are often used in the drug discovery, bioassays, research and pharmaceutical industries for screening applications. Microplate loading can also be automated, with robotic microplate stackers to increase throughput. Find the best microplate readers in our peer-reviewed product directory: compare products, check customer reviews and receive pricing direct from manufacturers.Assay AssemblyAssay Assembly is technique used in drug discovery to develop assays to test the cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, or other activities of a compound on a cell. Assay assembly requires chip assembly, a delivery system and a detection and analysis method. Beneficial features of assay kits or automated systems include high-throughput, high speed and sensitivity and low signal to noise ratio.Cell-Based AssaysCell-based assays are used to monitor the presence, quantity and activities of a desired cellular analyte including drug molecules or biomarkers. This can reveal information on cell health (apoptosis, cytotoxicity, viability and proliferation assays), cell metabolism, cell migration and cell signaling mechanisms. Find the best cell-based assay products, kits and equipment with our peer reviewed product directory: compare products, check customer reviews and receiving pricing direct from manufacturers.

Related articles

PerkinElmer Launches New Assay Development Service for Advanced Cellular Science and Drug Discovery