Therapy Discovery for Age-Related Immune System Dysregulation Using the FirePlex®-384 Multiplex Immunoassay

Join Will Van Trump (Spring Discovery), Delia Bucher (Assay.Works), and Paul Wylie (Abcam) to hear how FirePlex-384 multiplex immunoassay can accelerate high-throughput screening and help identify candidate compounds in early drug discovery. 

Published May 27, 2021

High-throughput screening (HTS) technologies play an important role in drug discovery and development. Combining HTS with multiplexing is valuable but technically challenging. FirePlex^® multiplex assay technology combines these two features. FirePlex is based on fluorescent dye encoded micro-particles and a powerful decoding workbench software. The assay platform has been adapted to interface with laboratory automation to allow multiplexing and absolute quantification of up to 10 protein analytes in a 384-well plate format. 

In this webinar, you will hear from Assay.Works, a CRO, and Spring Discovery, a biopharma company, on their recent collaboration. Their goal was to profile the differences between viral responses of old and young immune cells and identify rejuvenating drugs to improve viral defense mechanisms. The study focused on why COVID-19 infection causes different responses in young and elderly patients and identified compounds able to improve viral defense mechanisms.

This study required a multiplexing approach to analyze cytokines with a robust and sensitive assay in an automated workflow, which doesn't need new equipment. You'll learn how integrating Abcam's FirePlex-384 multiplex immunoassay into the discovery platform supported Spring Discovery and Assay.Works in identifying candidate compounds.

Webinar objectives:

• Learn about the FirePlex assay technology, including the assay principle, assay workflow, and technical specifications
• Understand the advantages of using multiplex assay technologies in early drug discovery
• See how the features of the FirePlex assay technology make it uniquely suitable for high-throughput screening and early drug discovery
• Learn about Spring Discovery and its unique approach and discovery platform
• Find out how the FirePlex assay technology helped Spring Discovery in its screening efforts
• Learn about Assay.Works and the services it provides

Who would be interested in this webinar?

• Drug discovery scientists
• Researchers interested in multiplex assays
• Cell-based assay developers
• Laboratory auto

About Assay.Works and Spring Discovery

Assay.Works is a contract research organization (CRO) specializing in assay services for pharmaceutical, biotech, and academic research. Assay. Works' mission is to accelerate their partner's research programs by developing and executing predictive and scalable assays to quantify the bioactivity of novel chemical and biological entities. In addition to FirePlex service, Assay. Works' service portfolio includes Assay Development, High-Throughput Screening (HTS), Cell Lines, Bioactivity Assessments, Quantitative Biology Applications.

Spring Discovery seeks to discover small molecule compounds that can rejuvenate the immune system. Spring Discovery's platform combines data generated from multiplex profiling of secreted factors using the FirePlex assay with multi-parametric high-content imaging to identify a suite of phenotypic features capable of distinguishing in vitro older versus younger immune cells. These phenotypic features were utilized to devise an immune-cell age score, which was then used to rank compounds for their potential to serve as age-related therapies.

About the presenters

Will Van Trump, PhD, Lead Process Engineer, Spring Discovery
Will is the Lead Process Engineer at Spring Discovery, responsible for assay development and process scale-up. He has a decade of experience in process and automation engineering in the biotech space, serving as the Manager of Process Engineering at Myriad Women's Health, the Director of Process Engineering at EpiBiome, and Senior Manager of Engineering at Illumina. Before moving into the biotech industry, Will obtained his Doctorate in Biology from the University of California at Irvine in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, where he studied the sensory biomechanics of the lateral line sensory system in zebrafish.

Delia Bucher, PhD, Scientist, Assay.Works

Delia Bucher is an experienced biologist specialized in the fields of cell biology and microscopy. She joined the Assay.Works team in 2019 as a scientist for assay development and high-throughput screening. She focuses on cell-based high-content screening and multiplex assays. In this context, she established the FirePlex high-throughput immunoassays at Assay.Works to combine imaging data with the quantification of up to 10 secreted analytes in a 384-well format.

Paul Wylie, PhD, Director of Multiplex, Kits and Assays, Abcam

Paul has over 20 years of experience working in life sciences, focusing on delivering early drug discovery research solutions, particularly in HTS, using phenotypic screening and other multiplexed techniques. He is now the Director of Multiplex at Abcam, responsible for leading the strategy and implementation of Abcam's multiplex portfolio.