"Single Bead, Single Molecule and Single Cell Chemical Biology"
Event details
| Date | 06.10.2009 |
| Hour | 16:00 |
| Speaker | Prof. Manfred Auer, Centre for Translational and Chemical Biology (CSE) & Division of Pathway Medicine (CMVM), Edinburgh Univ. |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract: The discovery of lead compounds for pharmaceutical development and the identification of tool compounds for basic science applications is an interdisciplinary exercise that integrates chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science, and both biochemical and clinical biomedicine. During recent years we has assembled, explored and exploited a unique miniaturized small molecule discovery platform that comprises steps from design, theoretical and experimental target analysis, high throughput chemical synthesis and screening to quantitative mechanistic studies of compound action in cells. This “chemical biophysics” technology is based on single micro bead analysis linked to single molecule scanning, spectroscopy and imaging for primary screening and quantitative compound confirmation in solution. Single cell micro-spectroscopy is applied for cellular mechanistic characterisation of validated hits. The integration of these methods enables high throughput hit and lead discovery at very low cost (< 1/1000 of conventional pharma-style screens). All process steps are thoroughly quantitative and quality controlled. The screening platform is run on four bespoke confocal microspectroscopes, a LEAP and a COPAS instrument, amongst many additional biophysical instruments. In our “science by screening” approach we focus our efforts on new strategies to tackle inhibition of protein – protein interactions, on identification of allosteric modulators and on the use of the newly discovered small molecule and peptidomimetics for solving mechanistic questions in mRNA stability regulation and receptor triggering mechanisms.
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- General public
- Free