Molecular Screening & Protein Expression Facility
Overview
The MOLECULAR SCREENING & PROTEIN EXPRESSION SHARED RESOURCE fosters collaboration and enables researchers to discover small molecule compounds and molecular genetic targets suitable to further study protein functions, signaling pathways, and cells in pure or complex biological systems. The Facility provides access to small molecule and lentiviral shRNA libraries, laboratory robotics, high-throughput screens (HTS), data analysis and interpretation, and post-screen advancement. Guidance is provided for target justification, assay development, miniaturization, robotic automation, and adaptation to HTS-compatible, high-density microplate (384-well) formats.
Expert technical assistance is available in designing biochemical and cell-based functional assays for compound testing and/or high- throughput screening, characterizing binding interactions using label-free surface plasmon resonance, and recombinant protein production/ purification in bacteria.
Services
- Development and optimization of miniaturized biochemical and cell-based assays.
- Receptor binding and functional assays, enzyme assays, protein-protein, protein-nucleic acid interaction assays
- Cytotoxicity assays (caspase, mitochondria membrane potential, live cells), reporter gene assays, cell signaling assays
- High-content cell-based assays in 96-well plates
- Biophysical, label-free assays using Biacore, thermal shift, or ITC
- Assessment of bimolecular interactions using label-free SPR
- High-throughput screening and pharmacological profiling of small molecule libraries
- Data analysis and interpretation
- Drug combination studies screening for synergistic cytotoxicity
- Hit validation and quantitative assessment of compound activity requires for post-screen advancement
- Small molecule analytical services
- Western blotting and in-cell western assays
- Consultation, training, project management, and grant preparation
Protein:
- Expression plasmid engineering
- Recombinant protein production and purification from bacteria
- Lentivirus preparation
Equipment & Features
- Echo 650 Acoustic liquid handler with Access Workstation
- Biacore T200
- PerkinElmer Operetta High-Content Screening reader
- ClarioStar Plus PlateReader
- EnVision multi-label microplate reader
- Cytation 5 plate reader/cell imager
- Janus Verispan 8-tipautomated pipetting workstation
- Janus MDT automated pipetting workstation
- MicroFlo reagent dispensers
- Agilent HPLC system
- Access to a FACSCalibur with auto-sampler, TopCount NTX and Applied Biosystems 7900HT
- Libraries and sub-libraries of compounds spanning various pathways and targets – contact the facility for more information
- BSL-1 and BSL-2 tissue culture suites
- TRCN shRNA library of druggable genome
Pricing
For pricing information, visit iLab or contact the managing director.
This facility is supported in part by a Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) awarded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center.
The facility was developed with support from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development Keystone Innovation Zone initiative, The F. M. Kirby Foundation, The CLAWS Foundation, The Florence & Daniel Green Foundation, The McClean Contributionship, From The Heart Foundation, the Noreen O’Neill Foundation for Melanoma Research, and NIH shared instrumentation grants.
See recording of facility presentation.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) has introduced new standards for grant applications to address an increasing trend of reports of failure to replicate important basic/preclinical studies.
The Wistar Institute
Molecular Screening and Protein Expression Facility
Rooms 322 and 352
3601 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
215-495-3948
molecular_screening@wistar.org
Joseph Salvino, Ph.D.
Scientific Director
Joel Cassel
Managing Director
Lily Lu
Research Assistant
Monday-Friday
9:00 am-5:00 pm