Syrrx and RTS announce a partnership to develop and market high throughput structural biology automation solutions
Syrrx and RTS Life Science International announce a partnership to develop and market high throughput structural biology automation solutions.
This will be known as the HTSB Factory and it allows the user to set-up hundreds of thousands of experiments for a target and increase the crystallization rate significantly. Dr Wendell Wierenga, chief executive officer for Syrrx, explained: "Building on Syrrx's extensive experience using automation to manufacture protein crystallography on an industrial scale, we have linked up with RTS to develop the next generation of automation.
Central to HTSB Factory is Syrrx's patented submicrolitre crystallisation format, as well as the informatics that Syrrx uses internally for its own research.
The specialised automation components are integrated by RTS using its experience providing automated solutions for compound management, cell culture, and high throughput screening to the pharmaceutical industry." Syrrx has deployed its structural biology automation to conduct over six million crystallisation trials during the past eighteen months using the submicrolitre crystallisation format, all managed by the informatics being incorporated into the HTSB Factory.
The integrated, automated, high throughput approach that Syrrx has taken to structural biology has yielded numerous otherwise refractory protein structures including DPPIV, histone deacetylase and difficult to solve kinases and nuclear hormone receptors.
The information provided by these structures, as well as their use in co-crystallography with drug candidates, has greatly enhanced and accelerated the productivity of Syrrx medicinal chemists in its internal drug discovery programs.
Alan Wyatt, RTS Life Science's managing director, commented: "In the past, protein crystallography was repetitive and slow, hampered by a lack of automation.
Having transformed HTS over the last few years, RTS believes that this partnership will do the same in structural biology.
Nanovolume crystallography accelerates protein crystal formation tenfold and when harnessed to a fully integrated and automated crystallisation imaging process the results are startling.
For example, 576 crystallisation trials can be conducted with just 0.1ml of protein and 19,200 crystallisation trials can be prepared in a shift by a single technician.
Our automation reduces the number of experimental errors and negates the need for technicians to work in a 4C environment.
In addition, images are annotated and accessed through a database with information being shared via Lims."
