Screening and investigating the biomolecular interactions of therapeutic molecules in living cells

A compact benchtop cellular analysis system from Guava Technologies Inc. has enabled the research group of Dr Christian D Muller at the Universite Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg, France) to rapidly and reliably screen potentially therapeutic molecules and to investigate their biomolecular interactions within living cells.

The Universite Louis Pasteur (ULP) Strasbourg is renowned for its scientific contributions that place it among the top-ranking French and European universities. This reputation is earned and reinforced by strong and well-established collaboration with the CNRS, INSERM and the INRA, as well as the interdisciplinary nature of the university's research. Located within the Faculty of Pharmacy, Dr Muller's research group undertake fundamental genomic research to investigate biomolecular interactions, identify and characterise new anti-TNF-alpha molecules for treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases.

Familiar with the capabilities of traditional flow cytometry systems - Dr Muller's research group, driven by a growing need for routine analyses, sought a cellular analysis system that was easy to learn and use, productive, reliable and would give top quality single cell analysis results.

As a leading supplier of benchtop cell analysis systems for life science research and drug discovery laboratories, Guava Technologies was familiar with many of the challenges faced by Dr Muller's research group. The Guava EasyCyte was selected as it offered the capability of routinely, rapidly and reliably screening single cells in an automated 96-well plate format. Integrating instrument, software and turnkey assays into an integrated solution the compact benchtop system was found to be easy-to-learn and use with less than a day's training. Such has been the success of the system that Dr Muller now also uses the Guava EasyCyte in the training workshops he runs in conjunction with the Association Francaise de Cytometrie.

The Guava Easycyte system delivers accurate and reproducible results by combining fluorescence-based techniques and high quality optical elements to maximise sensitivity, with automated software routines to reduce operator-induced variability. Benefiting from a patented self-aligning, user-replaceable microcapillary flow cell - assays on the Guava Easycyte need less cells, less reagents and generates far less waste than traditional flow cytometry systems. These benefits reduce running costs, save precious samples and save operator time. The Guava EasyCyte runs each of Guava's turnkey assays, enabling easy, fast measurements of GFP expression and viability, cell counting/viability, apoptosis, cell cycle analysis, antigen detection, cell phenotyping and more.