Membrane transport proteins, enabling active and secondary active transport of ions and solutes across the membrane, are important drug targets but may also be involved in unwanted side effects of novel drug candidates. Establishing predictive and scalable assays to identify and characterize bioactive substances for members of this protein family has been challenging and often required the use of radioactivity. Nanion’s SURFE²R platform employs label-free, SSM-based electrophysiology to resolve small currents of transporters and pumps.
To respond to the growing demand in assay options for membrane transporters and to afford researchers access to SSM-based electrophysiology, Nanion and Assay.Works entered into a partnership:
Supported by Nanion’s comprehensive electrophysiology expertise and technical know-how, Assay.Works now offers assay development, proof-of-principle studies, and compound screening on the SURFE²R 96SE which combines the electrophysiology hardware with online liquid-handling, allowing 96 parallel recordings with up to 10,000 data points per day. With extensive experience developing and performing functional assays for challenging targets across indications, Assay.Works is well positioned to help clients jump-starting their membrane transporter programs.
Dr. Maria Barthmes, Product Manager of the SURFE²R instrument family says: “We are delighted to enter into this valuable partnership with Assay.Works. Many of our clients are asking for a trustworthy service partner for their drug discovery efforts on membrane transporter targets. Assay.Works is standing out concerning their long-lasting experience in HTS assay screening, their capabilities, including cell and membrane production, as well as their complementary screening service portfolio.“
Dr. Ralf Schwandner, CEO of Assay.Works, adds: “We are excited to deepen our long-standing relationship with the electrophysiology experts at Nanion. Their SURFE2R platform perfectly fits our mission to develop and apply predictive and scalable assays for therapeutics discovery. Through the partnership with Nanion, our clients pursuing membrane transporter research will benefit from the new assay services we can offer based on the latest SSM-based electrophysiology technology provided by Nanion.“
About Assay.Works:
Assay.Works is a contract research organization (CRO) providing research services to pharmaceutical/biotech companies and academic organizations in form of fee-for-service work.
Our mission is to accelerate our partner’s research programs by developing and executing predictive and scalable assays to quantify the bioactivity of novel chemical and biological entities. We combine scientific rigor with our domain expertise in laboratory automation, informatics, and industry best practices to turn challenging assays into quantitative, reproducible results. Assay.Works’ service portfolio includes Assay Development, Cell Line Engineering and Production of Cellular Reagents, Bioactivity Assessments, Quantitative Biology Applications, and High-Throughput Screening (HTS).
For more information, see: www.assay.works
Nanion Technologies is a leading provider of instrumentation for ion channel drug discovery and screening. Founded in 2002, Nanion has grown over the last 17 years to a company with over 100 employees worldwide. With headquarters in Munich, Germany, Nanion has subsidiaries in the USA, Japan, China and Denmark, as well as distribution partners in seven other countries.
Nanion’s team has developed and successfully established four generations of automated patch clamp instruments for sophisticated and high throughput applications in ion channel research and drug discovery
(Port-a-Patch, Patchliner and SyncroPatch product families). Further product lines are for cell monitoring and
cardiotoxicity screening (CardioExcyte 96), for parallel bilayer recordings (Orbit family), and for parallel membrane transporter protein recordings (SURFE²R).
For more information, please visit www.nanion.de
Nanion Technologies GmbH
Ganghoferstrasse 70 A
80339 München
Telefon: 0049892190950
https://www.nanion.de
CEO
Telefon: +49 (941) 2000-1240
E-Mail: contact@assay.works.de
CEO
Telefon: +49 (89) 2189979-72
E-Mail: niels@nanion.de
