iPSC-derived models can be scaled to support HTS campaigns through robust bioprocessing/manufacturing. The cells can be used to reliably predict not only potential safety concerns, but can be efficiently used for high throughput phenotypic screening campaigns.
Current drug development strategies are very expensive and lead to high drug attrition rates. One major reason for low success rates is the lack of predictive preclinical models for efficacy testing. The availability of induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) technologies holds great promise to bring human biology to drug discovery but is still compromised by problems related to scalability, biological relevance, robustness and costs.
Here we demonstrate an end-to-end solution covering large-scale manufacturing, disease model generation and assay development up to high throughput screening (HTS), using cardiac hypertrophy.
The basis is formed by Ncardia’s proprietary differentiation technology, which allows reproducible manufacturing of cardiomyocytes, with high assay predictivity. Large scale manufacturing in bioreactor systems enabled the production of cardiomyocyte for HTS. We demonstrate the development and validation of a scalable assay for induction of cardiac hypertrophy.
To ensure reproducibility and accuracy using our hypertrophy assay in a high throughput mode we have validated an automated platform for cell culturing, assay readout and data handling.
Altogether, these results demonstrate an end-to-end solution for more efficient and cost-effective drug discovery using a combination of human iPSC-technology, bioprocessing and high throughput screening technologies.
Presented by
Greg Luerman,
Technical Director
Greg Luerman, PhD is Technical Director at Ncardia. Following his graduate studies at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, Dr. Luerman earned a Michael J Fox Foundation postdoctoral fellowship within the Pfizer Neuroscience Research Unit where he lead bioassay development on a Parkinson’s disease therapeutic team. He moved on to establish a preclinical cardiac safety/tox and drug discovery assays at ChanTest (now Charles River). Now at Ncardia, Dr. Luerman oversees North American scientific operations.
Farbod Famili,
Scientific Lead of assay development and high-throughput compound screening projects
Farbod Famili (PhD) is Scientific Lead of assay development and high-throughput compound screening projects at Ncardia. His responsibilities include development and validation of assays in various cardiovascular cellular disease models using proprietary hiPSC-derived
cardiomyocytes, high-throughput compound screening and target identification. Farbod has also developed expertise in application of robotic liquid handling systems in 384 and 1536-well microplates.
