Cisbio Bioassays adds three cellular kinase assays to its kinase screening platform

Cisbio Bioassays (www.cisbio.com), global developer of products, technologies and services used for assay development and drug screening and for in vitro diagnostics, has added three kinase assays to its growing cell-based kinase screening platform. The assays, all based on the company’s powerful HTRF® technology, were designed to provide new, easy and rapid tools for the study of different signaling pathways in drug discovery research, from high throughput screening to lead optimization phases.

Cisbio Bioassays developed the new assays in response to customer requests for cell-based kinase assays that provide a homogeneous, robust and easy-to-use alternative to technologies such as ELISA, Western blot and bead-based assays. The assays, Phospho-STAT3 (Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3) (Tyr705), Phospho-p38 MAPK (Thr180/Tyr182) and Phospho-IKKβ (Ser177/Ser181) involve targets that are associated with many diseases, including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, pulmonary fibrosis and acute lung injury. Specifically, the assays provide a target in a physiological environment and enable the analysis of signaling pathways in response to drug treatment. Kinases are major targets in drug discovery due to their involvement in nearly every therapeutic target area, and many pharmaceutical research programs aim to develop new drugs based on kinase-related targets such as therapeutic antibodies or permeant small molecules.

“Cisbio Bioassays was built upon years of experience in assay design in the immunodiagnostic and life sciences fields, and our long term mission is, quite simply, to offer new robust, mix and read screening methods that simplify research and facilitate therapeutic innovation,” said François Degorce, director of marketing and communications at Cisbio Bioassays. “For the past 12 months, we have specifically focused our R&D efforts towards developing cellular kinase and biomarker assays that demonstrate advanced properties over conventional assay technologies. HTRF has become synonymous with ease of use, cost efficiency and high-quality data output and, throughout the remainder of the year, we will continue to transform this know-how into new catalogue resources.”

Cisbio Bioassays’ cellular kinase assays combine the company’s expertise in assay design with its proprietary HTRF technology to provide a unique reference method for cell-based kinase investigation. The platform offers researchers the ability to use a single technology to study key targets in the different signaling pathways associated with areas such as oncology and inflammation. As with all HTRF-based assays, the three new cellular kinase assays are homogeneous, non-radioactive and non-bead based. Their mix and read protocol eliminates the need for washing steps and their long signal stability and flexibility allow for multiple experiments—including small series—without requiring special equipment, saving valuable time and cost.

The assays are available from Cisbio Bioassays’ service and support facilities in France and in the United States, and through the company’s network of distributors in Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.