APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY:
- Drug binding assays
ADVANTAGES:
- Enables rapid drug binding analyses
- Reduces cost and time to conduct complex, data-intensive drug experiments
- Applicable across a wide range of experimental conditions
ABSTRACT:
Researchers led by Berkeley Lab’s Alex Pines have developed a faster and more sensitive technology to characterize the affinity of drugs for proteins including albumin, globulin proteins, and others to determine drug dosing and efficacy.
In the Berkeley Lab technology, hyperpolarized xenon is bubbled into a solution containing a drug and a protein. The magnetization of the xenon is monitored and analyzed to identify a relaxation rate for the xenon, which relates to the affinity of the drug for the protein.
A membranes diffusion experiment, the most commonly used method to measure FDA-required protein binding ratios for drugs, is reliable but slow. Also, some drugs bind to the membrane, skewing the results. The speed with which the Berkeley Lab technology achieves results opens the door to high-throughput, automated protein titration and analyses.
DEVELOPMENT STAGE: Proven principle
STATUS: Published U. S. Patent Application 15/819,300 (Publication No. 2018/0149606). Available for licensing or collaborative research.
SEE THESE OTHER BERKELEY LAB TECHNOLOGIES IN THIS FIELD:
Novel Use of NMR with Microfluidic Lab-on-a-Chip Devices, IB-2212