Avacta Group plc Selects Trinean nv's Dropsense96® for Purified Protein QC
Avacta has established facilities capable of expressing and purifying 15,000 of their proprietary Affimer proteins every 6 weeks. These affinity reagents, which can be thought of as artificial antibodies, will be incorporated into very high complexity protein microarrays designed to revolutionize the discovery and validation of disease biomarkers. “The high complexity of the protein arrays means that the Affimers have to be produced to very high standards of purity and yield." said Paul Ko Ferrigno, Head of Discovery Technology at Avacta, "Our challenge is that quality control becomes a rate-limiting step when working at this high throughput .We currently have plates of purified Affimers stacked waiting for analysis by traditional methods. Once the Trinean DropSense96® is introduced into the workflow, quality control will become as automated as the purification protocols, allowing the development team to go from bacterial colony to purified protein of known concentration within 2 days, processing one thousand proteins at a time."
Philippe Stas, CEO of Trinean, added: "The decision by Avacta to use our DropSense96® droplet reader further validates our instruments to deliver high quality UV/Vis spectral absorbance data. The DropSense96® was designed to meet the requirements of protein purification labs by combining speed and minimal sample usage. Our unmatched large measurement range allows quantification of undiluted protein samples in real-time thereby significantly shortening the purification process.
About Trinean
Trinean is a Belgium based instrumentation company, bringing micro-volume molecular spectroscopy to the next level by combining best in class analytical software with a highly standardized read-out platform.
Founded in 2006 as a spin-out of the Ghent University, Belgium and Imec Leuven, Belgium, the company developed a high throughput spectrophotometer, the DropSense96®, with unprecedented capabilities, using microfluidic chips for standardized sample analysis (the DropPlate-S and DropPlate-D+ for single and dual read-outs). The Trinean platform is complemented with a software toolbox (including DropControl, DropQuant, cDrop™) for improved data interpretation and lab-automation.
Entering the market end of 2009, the DropSense96 is currently employed globally at over 100 sites.
For more information about Trinean, visit www.trinean.com
About Avacta
Avacta Group plc, a leading healthcare technology, reagents and consumables company provides proprietary analytical and diagnostics solutions to the life sciences/healthcare sector through two operating divisions: Avacta Analytical and Avacta Animal Health.
Avacta Analytical provides high-end analytical instrumentation and services to the biopharmaceutical sector, expected to be a $200bn revenues market by 2013 and the fastest growing part of the pharmaceutical industry. The Group's technologies are aimed at reducing the risks and expense associated with biological drug development and thereby reducing the final cost of drugs to patients. The Group's lead analytical instrument, Optim, is distributed through Pall Corporation in the US, Isogen Life Sciences in Europe, Cold Spring Biotech Corp in China and Taiwan and DKSH in Japan. Avacta sells Optim directly in the UK.
Avacta Animal Health provides diagnostic products and services for the $1.5bn global veterinary diagnostics market. Its aim is to equip veterinary professionals with high quality animal health and well-being information, through point of care diagnostics, reagents and testing kits and laboratory based testing. Avacta's AX-1 point of care immunoassay system is aimed at providing the veterinarian with rapid blood test results in the clinic. The initial range of tests launched with the AX-1 relates to Avacta's world leading allergy testing brand Sensitest®.Avacta is currently developing further assays for the AX-1 system to diagnose other diseases in companion animals. Longer term this technology will be transferred into the human clinical diagnostics market.
Avacta joined AIM in August 2006 and is based in Wetherby, England.
Further information:
Trinean N.V.
ir. Philippe Stas
Chief Executive Officer
Dulle Grietlaan 17/3
B-9050 Gent – Belgium
Tel.: +32-9-272.75.35
Fax.: +32-9-272.75.39
Philippe.Stas@trinean.com