Specialized Oncology Models

Oncology Drug Discovery and Development

InSymbiosis is a provider of a variety of innovative drug discovery and development services to the global biopharmaceutical industry. InSymbiosis has a specialized three-tier technology platform for the discovery and development of novel anticancer therapies:

A drug discovery platform
An in vitro oncology platform
A rodent based in vivo efficacy platform

Drug Discovery Platform

InSymbiosis has strong experience in early phase drug discovery in cancer related drug targets. Our drug discovery platform incorporates strong experience in key oncology drug target classes together with a state of the art high-throughput screening platform. InSymbiosis designs, plans and executes part of or a client’s entire discovery program. InSymbiosis has key expertise in the following drug target families:

G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs)
Receptor tyrosine kinases
Kinases
Phosphatases
Ion channels
Proteases

Our drug target expertise is integrated into our assay development and high-throughput screening (HTS) platform where assays can rapidly transition through cloning, expression, assay development and into HTS. We support a large range of biochemical and cell based assay formats, including all key major readout modalities (absorbance, fluorescence, time-resolved fluorescence, fluorescence polarization, luminescence, radiometric and high-throughput electrophysiology). Our HTS system allows screening of up to 20,000 compounds per day from either our ‘in-house’ library or a library supplied by our client.

In vitro Oncology Platform

The use of in vitro cell based assays in cancer drug discovery is often a key transition phase between discovery and in vivo efficacy testing. InSymbiosis’ in vitro oncology platform is composed of a broad range of cancer cell lines used in a variety of assays to profile the in vitro efficacy of anti-cancer compounds and provide a strong platform for mechanism of action studies. Our in vitro capability has multiple applications including prioritization of ‘hits’ from a HTS program, profiling of tumor types to determine the therapeutic potential of a test article or the screening of cancer cell line sensitivity to test articles.

Our in vitro oncology platform is built on strong internal experience in cell-based assays as well as unique experience and assays from local academic centers of excellence. InSymbiosis has a repository of numerous human and non-human cancer cell lines. A large part of this collection is made up of the National Cancer Institute’s NCI-60 set of human cancer cell lines which represents a broad range of tumor types.

A variety of in vitro cellular assays are used routinely at InSymbiosis which include:

2-dimensional and 3-dimensional proliferation assays
Cytotoxicity assays
Apoptosis assays
Cell motility and invasion assays
Chemotherapy synergism assays

In addition, new assays are regularly being developed and specific assays can be used or developed based on client needs.

In vivo Oncology Efficacy Platform

InSymbiosis’ in vivo platform for drug efficacy evaluation is based on both mouse and rat experimental models developed through collaboration with leading oncology researchers. This efficacy platform incorporates a variety of tumor model formats to provide insight into the therapeutic potential of the novel molecule. In addition, pharmacokinetic and toxicology parameters are supported within this platform.

Support for our in vivo Oncology Platform

InSymbiosis has a range of supporting services that complement our in vivo efficacy studies.

Whole animal optical imaging system:
- ART eXplore Optix optical imaging system
- Non-invasively characterize, quantify and visualize cellular and molecular events in living animals using fluorescent probes
- Up to 4 rats or mice can be imaged at the same time
- Tumor size, metastasis and response to treatment evaluations can be made in real time
Small animal PET and MRI
Transgenic animal capability:
- Targeting vector design and construction
- Pronuclear microinjection
- Generation of KO/KI mice
- Cryopreservation of embryos and sperm
- Line rederivation
- Phenotyping (bone, behavioral, cardiovascular profiles, infectious disease, asthma and pain)
Histology and immunohistochemistry
Veterinary pathology
Pharmacokinetics and toxicology
FACS analysis
Molecular biology support
- General molecular biology
- DNA, RNA and protein extraction from tissues
- PCR, Western, Northern and Southern blots, immunoassays, ELISA
- Genotyping

Please see our Specialized Efficacy Model brochure for more details or Contact Us.