Marseille, 2009 September 29 - Trophos SA, a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapeutics for indications with under-served needs in neurology and cardiology, announced today the launch of the new generation of its fluorescence fast plate imaging system, the Plate RUNNER HD(R).
Trophos originally developed the Plate RUNNER HD(R) to speed up its own screening campaigns for drug discovery and development. The company has now implemented an improved version which offers much better resolution and allows imaging of the 7mm well of the standard 96 plate in matrices of up to 8192 x 8192 pixels. This positions it as the superior alternative to the traditional automated microscope in a wider area of cellular and small organism imaging applications such as neurite outgrowth or C.elegans screens. The Plate RUNNER HD(R) is protected by patents granted in the USA and Europe.
"The Plate RUNNER HD(R) has now reached both a performance and an operational level that allows it to be widely used in various imaging platforms," said Damian Marron, CEO of Trophos. "We have optimized it by regular use in our screening and research platforms. Use in other labs such as the Neuronal Cell Biology & Pathology research unit directed by Dr Christian Neri at the Inserm Psychiatry and Neurosciences Centre (Paris, France) and the Laboratory of Motor Neuron Biology directed by Dr Alvaro G. Estévez at the Burke Medical Research Institute (NY, USA) has confirmed its performance."
(For further information, see http://www.broca.inserm.fr and http://www.burke.org).
The Plate RUNNER HD(R) fills the gaps between the low sensitivity/low resolution/cell consuming fluorescence plate readers, the high sensitivity but non-imaging flow cytometer, and the slow, poorly automated and small field fluorescence microscope. It does this by allowing whole well/full plate imaging in just 2 minutes 40 seconds for 96 images of 1024 x 1024 pixels, 8 minutes at 4096 x 4096 resolution and 25 minutes at the extremely powerful 8192 x 8192 resolution. The maximum resolution gives details as fine as 1 micron, which covers the vast majority of cellular imaging applications.
"The instrument is not only the source of our pipeline - nearly 1 million compounds screened in eight years - but also an everyday research tool that does in two minutes a job that usually requires a week manually," said Pierre Delaage, Head of Development of Trophos Instruments. "Using exclusively open data formats, the Plate RUNNER HD(R) integrates smartly and smoothly with all existing imaging and data processing environments with no hidden extra costs. It is also a "green product" using at least ten times less electrical power for illumination than its competitors. It has the important advantage of having a lower price and TCO than the traditional microscope-based instruments."
Dr Christian Neri, Research Director at the Psychiatry and Neuroscience Center of Inserm in Paris, stated "We have been using the Trophos screening system since its first commercial version; it allowed us to simply and rapidly automate our screening protocols on C.elegans worms and on cells. To move further in C.elegans screens we needed a far higher resolution without sacrificing light, sensitivity and field. We have now seen that Trophos' latest instrument meets perfectly our very stringent requirements."
"We continue to directly sell and support the Plate RUNNER HD(R) and are now looking to set up a commercial and industrial partnership to address more widely the global market opportunity," added Marron. "The Plate RUNNER HD(R) offers unique performance and can be a great fit for imaging solutions manufacturers and vendors, to exploit opportunities for example in the area of small organism or angiogenesis screens as well as cellular screens."
About the Plate RUNNER HD(R):
Developed by Trophos since 1999 initially for its own HTS platform, The Plate RUNNER HD(R) is a rapid fluorescence 96-plate imager giving full 7mm well images in single snapshots (ie no mosaic reconstruction), embedding three commonly used wavelength illumination lamps using fast-switching LED technology, thus leading to more homogeneous light, very long life time (100 000 hours against 5000 hours for xenon or mercury lamps), higher speed and dramatically reduced maintenance costs. Images are given in standard 1024 x 1024 definition but also in higher 2048 x 2048, 4096 x 4096 and even 8192 x 8192 pixels definition, leading to details of about 1 micron in size.
Compared to classic automated microscopes, The Plate RUNNER HD(R) is much more simple, integrated, automated, robust and fast; it has no oculars (eyepieces), no huge frame, no complicated auto focus system, no complicated settings, no complicated software, and does not need any cooling/heating delay between illumination sessions nor painful recalibration between sessions. Built on modular, open and interoperable design and data formats, it is compatible with any existing image processing platform. Training for common tasks is achieved in less than 1 hour, and there is no need of high skilled people to install or set it up.
Driven by Trophos proprietary software running on standard low cost PCs and using advanced real time programming techniques coming from the industry, the device reliably acquires 96 images at 1024 x 1024 definition in just 2 minutes 40 seconds (for a standard 488nm excitation and 200ms exposure time), 8mn for 4096 x 4096 images and 25mn for 8192 x 8192 images.
The device is patent protected in France, Europe and USA. Patent is pending in Canada and Japan. Detailed specifications are available here (http://www.trophos.com/download/pr_datasheet.pdf).
About Trophos: http://www.trophos.com
Trophos is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapeutics from discovery to clinical validation for indications with under-served needs in neurology and cardiology. The Company has a novel and proprietary cholesterol-oxime based chemistry platform generating a pipeline of drug candidates, with the lead product, olesoxime (TRO19622), in phase II clinical trials and a second product, TRO40303, planned to enter the clinic in 2010. Trophos' mitochondrial pore modulator compounds enhance the function and survival of stressed cells via modulation of dysfunctional mitochondria through interactions at the permeability transition pore (mPTP). Recently published clinical studies support the therapeutic rationale for mitochondria targeted drugs in neurology (Alzheimer's disease) and cardiology (ischemia-reperfusion injury), which Trophos is uniquely placed to exploit.
Trophos has not only invested in science but also in technology such as the Plate RUNNER HD(R), which is a key reason why Trophos was able to bring products into phase II clinical trial after only 8 years, instead of the 12-15 or even 20 years commonly observed".
Trophos originally developed the Plate RUNNER HD(R) to speed up its own screening campaigns for drug discovery and development. The company has now implemented an improved version which offers much better resolution and allows imaging of the 7mm well of the standard 96 plate in matrices of up to 8192 x 8192 pixels. This positions it as the superior alternative to the traditional automated microscope in a wider area of cellular and small organism imaging applications such as neurite outgrowth or C.elegans screens. The Plate RUNNER HD(R) is protected by patents granted in the USA and Europe.
"The Plate RUNNER HD(R) has now reached both a performance and an operational level that allows it to be widely used in various imaging platforms," said Damian Marron, CEO of Trophos. "We have optimized it by regular use in our screening and research platforms. Use in other labs such as the Neuronal Cell Biology & Pathology research unit directed by Dr Christian Neri at the Inserm Psychiatry and Neurosciences Centre (Paris, France) and the Laboratory of Motor Neuron Biology directed by Dr Alvaro G. Estévez at the Burke Medical Research Institute (NY, USA) has confirmed its performance."
(For further information, see http://www.broca.inserm.fr and http://www.burke.org).
The Plate RUNNER HD(R) fills the gaps between the low sensitivity/low resolution/cell consuming fluorescence plate readers, the high sensitivity but non-imaging flow cytometer, and the slow, poorly automated and small field fluorescence microscope. It does this by allowing whole well/full plate imaging in just 2 minutes 40 seconds for 96 images of 1024 x 1024 pixels, 8 minutes at 4096 x 4096 resolution and 25 minutes at the extremely powerful 8192 x 8192 resolution. The maximum resolution gives details as fine as 1 micron, which covers the vast majority of cellular imaging applications.
"The instrument is not only the source of our pipeline - nearly 1 million compounds screened in eight years - but also an everyday research tool that does in two minutes a job that usually requires a week manually," said Pierre Delaage, Head of Development of Trophos Instruments. "Using exclusively open data formats, the Plate RUNNER HD(R) integrates smartly and smoothly with all existing imaging and data processing environments with no hidden extra costs. It is also a "green product" using at least ten times less electrical power for illumination than its competitors. It has the important advantage of having a lower price and TCO than the traditional microscope-based instruments."
Dr Christian Neri, Research Director at the Psychiatry and Neuroscience Center of Inserm in Paris, stated "We have been using the Trophos screening system since its first commercial version; it allowed us to simply and rapidly automate our screening protocols on C.elegans worms and on cells. To move further in C.elegans screens we needed a far higher resolution without sacrificing light, sensitivity and field. We have now seen that Trophos' latest instrument meets perfectly our very stringent requirements."
"We continue to directly sell and support the Plate RUNNER HD(R) and are now looking to set up a commercial and industrial partnership to address more widely the global market opportunity," added Marron. "The Plate RUNNER HD(R) offers unique performance and can be a great fit for imaging solutions manufacturers and vendors, to exploit opportunities for example in the area of small organism or angiogenesis screens as well as cellular screens."
About the Plate RUNNER HD(R):
Developed by Trophos since 1999 initially for its own HTS platform, The Plate RUNNER HD(R) is a rapid fluorescence 96-plate imager giving full 7mm well images in single snapshots (ie no mosaic reconstruction), embedding three commonly used wavelength illumination lamps using fast-switching LED technology, thus leading to more homogeneous light, very long life time (100 000 hours against 5000 hours for xenon or mercury lamps), higher speed and dramatically reduced maintenance costs. Images are given in standard 1024 x 1024 definition but also in higher 2048 x 2048, 4096 x 4096 and even 8192 x 8192 pixels definition, leading to details of about 1 micron in size.
Compared to classic automated microscopes, The Plate RUNNER HD(R) is much more simple, integrated, automated, robust and fast; it has no oculars (eyepieces), no huge frame, no complicated auto focus system, no complicated settings, no complicated software, and does not need any cooling/heating delay between illumination sessions nor painful recalibration between sessions. Built on modular, open and interoperable design and data formats, it is compatible with any existing image processing platform. Training for common tasks is achieved in less than 1 hour, and there is no need of high skilled people to install or set it up.
Driven by Trophos proprietary software running on standard low cost PCs and using advanced real time programming techniques coming from the industry, the device reliably acquires 96 images at 1024 x 1024 definition in just 2 minutes 40 seconds (for a standard 488nm excitation and 200ms exposure time), 8mn for 4096 x 4096 images and 25mn for 8192 x 8192 images.
The device is patent protected in France, Europe and USA. Patent is pending in Canada and Japan. Detailed specifications are available here (http://www.trophos.com/download/pr_datasheet.pdf).
About Trophos: http://www.trophos.com
Trophos is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapeutics from discovery to clinical validation for indications with under-served needs in neurology and cardiology. The Company has a novel and proprietary cholesterol-oxime based chemistry platform generating a pipeline of drug candidates, with the lead product, olesoxime (TRO19622), in phase II clinical trials and a second product, TRO40303, planned to enter the clinic in 2010. Trophos' mitochondrial pore modulator compounds enhance the function and survival of stressed cells via modulation of dysfunctional mitochondria through interactions at the permeability transition pore (mPTP). Recently published clinical studies support the therapeutic rationale for mitochondria targeted drugs in neurology (Alzheimer's disease) and cardiology (ischemia-reperfusion injury), which Trophos is uniquely placed to exploit.
Trophos has not only invested in science but also in technology such as the Plate RUNNER HD(R), which is a key reason why Trophos was able to bring products into phase II clinical trial after only 8 years, instead of the 12-15 or even 20 years commonly observed".
