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 What are the advantages of your fluorogenic complex over FRET?
Our technology relies on the use of a Pya fluorophore that is well known for producing a very intense fluorescence. Multiplication factors of 2, 3 and upto 5 can be obtained compared to FRET technics. This increase fluorescence will give the detection process access to much lower quantity of the enzyme (increased sensitivity) or will allow for a faster detection.
What toxin should we buy to test your botulinum toxin assay ?
There are different kinds of toxins available from different sources. It is important to know from your provider what is the real type of toxin it is offering (check for example the molecular weight), and in particular whether the toxin provided :
is pure or in a complex (molecular weight ?)
is nicked or non-nicked (cleavage or not of the peptide bond between the light and the heavy chain)
includes the light chain only or the full toxin (light and heavy chain).
Where can toxins be acquired?
Toxins are highly regulated products. Only very limited quantity of toxins can be purchased and for R&D only. There are very few providers of them in the world (ex Metabiologics in the USA) . You need to contact them and obtain an export licence from the government of their country. A licence to transport, detain and use the toxin will also be required by the government of your own country that will conduct an inquiry on the activities of your company.
Is Pharmaleads a service company?
Pharmaleads’ business is to develop novel molecules that meet the special requirements of the pharmaceutical industries. Our strategy is focussed on the high added value R&D phases that lead to intellectual property. Although we have some limited production capabilities and therefore we can provide customers with some amount of substrates or inhibitors, our main objective is to licence property rights on these molecules through multi-year licencing agreements.
Why is not Pharmaleads involved in genetic engineering or molecular biology as most of the biotech are ?
We have observed that the major achievements in the decoding of DNA leads to changes in the identification of new pharmacologic targets and to the development of proteomics. In both cases the design of substrates and inhibitors becomes a top priority that Pharmaleads is ideally positionned to serve.
What are the different families of Proteases ?
Proteases and peptidases are equivalent wording for the same molecules. There are four families of proteases based on the nature of their active site and on their reaction mechanism:
1) Zinc metalloprotease
2) Serine protease
3) Aspartyl protease
4) Cysteine protease
Peptidases can also be subdivided in exopeptidases and endopeptidases depending on where the cleavage site is located: exopeptidase for a cleavage of the terminal amino acid (it can then be aminopeptidase or carboxypeptidase), endopeptidases otherwise.
Pharmaleads initial know-how is on Zinc metallopeptidase; it has been extended to a large number of other proteases.
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