The facility, which has been generously funded by the East of England Development Agency utilises a Meso Scale Discovery® (MSD) Multi-Array® detection unit, ‘MSDSECTOR® Imager 6000’ to read and quantify a wide range of single and multiplex kits for biomarkers, cell signalling pathways and immunogenicity assays.
The detector unit is based on electro-chemiluminescence technology, the assay kits also being provided by MSD. This platform has become the industry standard within many large pharmaceutical companies for supporting in-vitro, preclinical and clinical drug discovery and development.
Human, mouse, rat and ‘bioprocess’ marker assays are available and the complete range may be viewed at: http://www.mesoscale.com/CatalogSystemWeb/WebRoot/products/assays.aspx
The assays cover toxicology, metabolic disorders, Alzheimer’s Disease, Rheumatoid Diseases and other therapeutic areas.
Descriptive literature is available covering these categories.
In preclinical studies, assay of various cytokines that indicate hepatic and kidney toxicity are popular and using the MSD assay platform these can be ‘multiplexed’ i.e. up to 10 biomarkers can be measured simultaneously using as little as 25µL of plasma. In addition, the MSD assay platform can also be applied to clinical R&D.
As with preclinical studies, there are assays available to evaluate a drug’s toxicity in humans plus assays to support R&D into a range of therapeutic areas such as metabolic syndrome, inflammation, Alzheimer’s Disease, oncology and many more.
For further information, see www.BABSbiomarkerservices.co.uk or e-mail Dr Mira Doig, mira.abs@biopark.org.uk
