Trana Discovery of Cary has announced the development of a high throughput screening (HTS) assay platform that will easily identify new HIV treatment compounds.
The HTS assay was developed in collaboration with Southern Research Institute, a research organization that conducts basic and applied preclinical drug research. This new assay gives pharmaceutical companies the ability to rapidly and efficiently screen vast libraries of compounds in order to identify those that interrupt the life and replicating cycle of HIV.
This technology has the potential to discover new classes of medicines for the treatment of HIV that may overcome resistance mechanisms associated with current therapies.
To date in the U.S., about 30 drugs -- as single agents or as combination products -- for the treatment of HIV infections have been introduced by more than ten different companies.
Combating HIV Resistance
But collectively, these agents represent only five different classes working at just four different sites of action in the HIV replicative cycle. And despite the enhanced potency of the more recently introduced products, resistance continues to be a major challenge for managing patients with HIV.
There remains an unexploited target for antiretroviral drugs—the disruption of human transfer RNA (tRNA) use by the virus during HIV replication.
But until recently, several barriers, including the stability of the RNA-RNA binding during experimentation, had prevented exploration of tRNA as a drug target. Working in collaboration with Southern Research, Trana Discovery refined their technology to overcome those barriers in a HTS format, thus opening the way to discovery and development of HIV drugs that work by means of this novel mechanism of action.
Screening 50,000 Compounds Daily
At the state-of-the-art High Throughput Screening Center at Southern Research, the Trana Discovery RNA assay was adapted to the robotics platform. By using precision robotics, highly accurate low volume liquid handling devices, sensitive detectors and powerful data processing software, the HTS assay that was developed will allow researchers to quickly conduct millions of tests that identify active compounds.
The data generated from a large screen like this provides the starting point for drug design and development. Using this newly validated assay, the HTS Center at Southern Research can screen 50,000 compounds per day.
Source: Trana Discovery News Release