Roche has opened the Joint Science and Technology Laboratory in Basel, where its scientists are using the Xcelligence Cell Analyzer system to investigate hepatic and cardiac toxicities in vitro.
This technology will improve the predictive value of in vitro assessments of organ toxicity and help to reduce animal testing in toxicity research.
Cell-based in vitro assays are a key tool for early assessment of drug candidates.
Toxicology routinely employs these assays, for example to determine genotoxicity.
The non-clinical safety community is developing other assays especially for prediction of organ-specific toxicity.
Thomas Singer, head of global non-clinical safety at Roche Pharma, said: 'New techniques such as real-time cell analysis with the Xcelligence system will accelerate the ability to identify the toxic potential of a compound at an early stage of drug development.' The non-invasive and label-free Xcelligence technology is based on measuring the impedance of cells: the variations in electrical resistance are caused by changes in numbers, adhesion or shape of the cells.
In conjunction with its user-friendly data collection and analysis capabilities, the Xcelligence system makes a unique platform for continuous real-time cell-based assays and provides a huge opportunity for cellular and molecular biology.
The data from the Xcelligence real-time impedance measurement, combined with molecular profiling of the toxic effects of compounds on cardiomyocytes and hepatocytes, will be compared with conventional cell-biology assays and molecular endpoints.
Based on this platform, the goal is to develop new prediction methods for target organ toxicity in vitro and to identify new cellular biomarkers for toxicity prediction.
