Drug Target Discovery Service

Drug targets are the binding sites between drugs and biological macromolecules in the body, including genetic sites, receptors, enzymes, ion channels, nucleic acids and other biological macromolecules. The key to modern new drug research and development is to find and identify drug targets.

Drug target discovery is based on chemical or genetic identification. The former means that the therapeutic effect can be achieved by regulating target proteins with chemical substances, while the latter means that the therapeutic effect can be achieved by using genetic technology such as animal gene deletion or human gene mutation. Drug target discovery not only conducts basic research on diseases, but also studies structural information and interactions between targets and other proteins, involving chemical proteomics and molecular biology.

STEMart provides a wide range of orthogonal biophysical methods that allow you to fully study the drug targets of interest. All this information allows you to start the drug discovery process on a rational basis during subsequent drug development stages.

Service Items

• Assessment of clinical relevance of drug targets
  • STEMart preclinical imaging system accurately detects conditions during disease that may be related to the specific target of interest. Longitudinal imaging techniques enable the assessment of in vivo biomarkers in functionally intact organs / tissues over a given period of time.
• Uncovering proteomic characterization of disease states
  • The PASEF method achieves high speed and sensitivity. The deepest understanding of the proteome can be obtained by using shotgun proteomic analysis.
• Study on protein structure of drug target and study on the interaction between target and conjugate
  • X-ray diffraction is considered the gold standard method for structure determination and can be used to determine high molecular weight structures of several hundred kDa. This technique enables in-depth studies of protein structure and binding behavior at optimal resolution.
  • Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology can be used to study protein structure in solution. High-field and ultra-high-field NMR analysis is equally applicable to smaller proteins and even those that are highly flexible or inherently disordered. In addition, NMR can detect protein structure and dynamics in solution, usually under physiological conditions, and can also study ligand binding affinity.
  • Cross-linking mass spectrometry and hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry are regarded as complementary solutions that can help solve problems faced in the process of target structure elucidation.
  • Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) adds critical information to the target discovery process. Real-time analysis of interactions between biomolecular targets and potential binders can provide insights into interactions beyond disaffinity. SPR can also explain the binding mechanism of analytes to proteins. Compared with NMR, SPR is an orthogonal method and is often used for target validation of known binders or fragments.

For more information about our drug target discovery services, please contact us.