Ligand-Receptor Binding Assays and Nuclear Reporter Gene Assays

Fluorescence detection is emerging as one of the most powerful techniques for high-throughput screening (HTS) of compounds for drug discovery. The utility of fluorescent techniques has been dramatically expanded with the recent discovery that functional recombinant green fluorescent protein (GFP) can be expressed in numerous prokaryotic and eukaryotic hosts.

Ciencia is actively developing novel in vivo cell-based assay methodologies targeted to G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) based on the use of recombinant GFP-GPCR fusion proteins using fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) transduction techniques and fluorescence lifetime detection.

GPCR constitute one of the most important classes of drug targets for pharmacological intervention. Already, they comprise about 60% of all targets for drugs manufactured today, and account for one of the largest target families resulting from the Human Genome Project.

In collaboration with Packard Instrument Company Ciencia is also applying fluorescence lifetime-based FRET transduction methods in conjunction with GFP constructs to the development of nuclear reporter gene assays.