Protea Biosciences & InSphero AG Enter to Combine 3D Technologies
Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. and InSphero AG jointly announced they have entered into a collaboration that will combine each company’s respective 3D technology. InSphero AG is the leading supplier of 3D organotypic microtissues for in vitro toxicology and efficacy studies, with models derived from liver, pancreas, tumor, and brain tissue that yield a high level of predictability during drug development compared to traditional 2-dimensional cell culture and other in vitro model systems.
The collaboration will use Protea’s proprietary LAESI direct molecular imaging platform to analyze InSphero’s proprietary 3D InSight microtissues, creating 3D molecular profiles for tissue characterization, drug metabolism and distribution, pharmacokinetic, and toxicity applications. From this collaboration, Protea and InSphero expect to create new products and services that may be marketed to pharmaceutical and biotechnology researchers worldwide.
“The understanding of disease and the development of new pharmaceuticals continues to be an enormous challenge, one that requires new technologies,” said Protea’s CEO, Stephen Turner. “We believe that InSphero’s 3D microtissues deliver a new level of insight and predictability to the drug development process. We are honored to be working with InSphero’s team of scientists and to have the opportunity to apply our LAESI direct molecular imaging technology to the analysis of their 3D microtissues.”
InSphero CEO and Co-founder Dr. Jan Lichtenberg believes the partnering of the two 3D technologies is a natural fit. “The LAESI technology increases the power of mass spectrometry, and is uniquely suited to meet the needs of researchers using our 3D microtissues. The ability to reconstruct the molecular profile of a tissue in three dimensions, including endogenous proteins, drugs, and compound metabolites, will facilitate a deeper characterization of 3D cell models, and open doors to novel applications that can further enhance their utility in drug discovery and development.”
Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. is a commercial-stage molecular information company, focused on meeting the needs of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agriculture, chemical, and other industries with innovative bioanalytical technologies. Protea’s proprietary technology, LAESI (Laser Ablation Electrospray Ionization), is used with mass spectrometry to identify large numbers of distinct molecules from a single analysis of tissues, cells, fluids, agricultural specimens and other sample types. For more information, visit www.proteabio.com.
InSphero is a leading supplier of organotypic, biological in vitro 3D microtissues for highly predictive drug testing. The company, headquartered near Zurich, Switzerland, with subsidiaries in the US and Germany, currently counts all of the top 10 global pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies as customers. InSphero 3D Insight Microtissues enable more biologically relevant in vitro applications in efficacy and toxicology. For more information, visit www.insphero.com.
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