Californias-based private biotherapeutic company implements package for managing protein therapeutics data; small molecule screening software configured to handle protein variants
IDBS, provider of integrated data management, analysis and decision-making software for the life sciences, reports that Xencor, a private biotherapeutic company, has deployed the ActivityBase software suite as its corporate proteomics database. ActivityBase is widely used in the biopharmaceutical industry for managing and integrating cheminformatic data.
Working closely with Xencor's protein therapeutics specialists, consultants from IDBS's professional services division have adapted ActivityBase to handle large protein sequence sets.
Xencor's unique configuration of the software accommodates multiple variants of amino acid sequences, integrates them with information about their biological properties and facilitates querying and reporting.
Xencor is the leading company at the forefront of a revolutionary new development in protein therapeutics - computational protein design.
Xencor scientists alter the amino acid sequence of proteins, changing their biophysical and biochemical characteristics in order to improve their therapeutic potential with the assistance of a patented computational technology platform called Protein Design Automation (PDA).
The process is analogous to traditional small molecule screening, in which various compounds are tested for their activity against a particular target.
In both cases, Structure Activity Relationship (SAR) analysis is a key part of the process.
"ActivityBase is well-known to be very strong for SAR and substructure searching," commented Richard Bishop, associate director of IT at Xencor.
"Through the ingenuity of the IDBS consultants, we proved that the software could be adapted for similar processes in protein engineering.
We now have a firm data foundation upon which we can carry out powerful analyses." Xencor stores the sequences of naturally existing forms of proteins (so-called wild types) within the ActivityBase database.
Modifying the protein sequence at one or more positions generates variants of the protein.
Details of the new variant protein, as well as a summary of its genealogy and its biological properties are captured and made available to users via the ActivityBase interface.
Steve Doberstein is Xencor's vice president of research.
He commented: "That the ActivityBase front-end accommodates amino acid sequences rather than compounds is great; but what is really amazing is the adaptability of the system, allowing its conversion for use with large numbers of proteins and the associated biological test results." "We are very excited about our collaboration with Xencor in this ground-breaking area of proteomics research," said Neil Kipling, chairman and CEO of IDBS.
"The effectiveness of the solution we have been able to deliver for Xencor is testimony to the enduring flexibility of the ActivityBase data model and the strength and depth of skills within our professional services organisation."
