BioAscent has invested in a second Biacore 8k SPR System, further enhancing its biophysical assay development and screening capabilities. 

This additional Biacore 8k provides BioAscent with extra capacity for employing Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), a label free technique that allows the assessment of biomolecular interactions in real time. It enhances the exceptional biophysical assay development and screening capabilities and expertise already available at BioAscent via our existing SPR, Thermal Shift and Microscale Thermophoresis (MST) capabilities, all of which investigate molecular interactions.

SPR offers a range of benefits over other biophysical techniques including:

• Real time measurement of the direct interaction between the target and binding partner(s)

• No requirement for fluorescent labels

• Low protein consumption

• A wide range of targets/analytes can be characterised: from RNA/DNA, through proteins to larger macromolecules including antibodies and viruses

More specifically, the benefits of the Biacore 8k include:

• An increased sensitivity in comparison to other SPR machines, allowing us to characterise interactions between a wide range of targets and small molecules or fragments

• A higher throughput compared to other systems on the market allowing rapid fragment or small molecule single point screening (~1200 compounds per day)

• Additionally, we can screen 144 compounds for affinity/kinetic measurements per day, allowing us to support client research projects during hit optimisation stage

The additional Biacore 8k allows BioAscent to offer increased SPR capacity to support customer research programmes through all stages of the drug discovery process from early hit identification, hit optimisation through to lead candidate. To find out more about our biochemical, biophysical and cellular assay development expertise, click here.