BioMAP® Profiling Provides Insights into Toxicity of Nanomaterials, Failed Drugs and
Environmental Chemicals
ToxCast High-throughput Screening Results Using BioSeek's
BioMAP® Human Primary Cell Assay Systems Presented at Society
of Toxicology
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (March 12, 2012): Assessments of the
biological activity of various nanomaterials and chemicals in
the context of primary human cell biology were presented
today at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology by
scientists from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and
BioSeek, LLC. The presented findings further demonstrate the
value of BioMAP® human primary cell assay systems for both
identifying critical bioactivities and potentially adverse
effects of drugs, new materials and other compounds in a
high-throughput format.
"Through our work with EPA, BioMAP is yielding a rich harvest
of biological information on a wide variety of environmental
and other chemicals and their potential effects on human
health," said Ellen Berg, Ph.D., General Manager of BioSeek.
"In addition to helping meet the goals of the ToxCast
Program, which are aimed at developing high-throughput
screening methods capable of predicting chemical toxicities,
this information is continuing to enrich our BioMAP database.
We view that resource as an increasingly valuable tool that
can be mined to better understand the activities and
potential safety of our pharmaceutical partners' compounds in
the context of human biology, prior to undertaking costly
human clinical trials."
In an oral presentation by EPA, various nanomaterials with
varying cores and their ion and micro counterparts were
tested for cytotoxicity in various cell types, for
transcription factor activation in HepG2cells, and for
protein bioactive profiling in eight BioMAP human primary
cell systems at concentrations equivalent to human exposures
of 24 hours to 45 years. Analysis showed that nanomaterial
cores are critical to bioactivities and their effects are
often similar to those of related ions. Comparing test
results on nanomaterials to reference profiles of other
compounds in the BioMAP database suggested further molecular
targets and pathways affected by the tested nanomaterials
that weren't directly measured by the assays performed.
A poster presented by EPA and BioSeek collaborators discussed
the biological profiling of the ToxCast Phase II Chemical
Library in BioSeek's primary human cell co-culture systems.
The Phase II library contains 1060 unique compounds including
failed pharmaceuticals donated by industry partners,
reference compounds known to be endocrine disrupters,
carcinogens or reproductive/developmental toxicants, and
other widely used chemicals, food and cosmetic additives, and
proposed alternatives to current industrially used chemicals
The chemicals were tested in a panel of BioMAP co-culture
systems
and classified based on their ability to cause overt
cytotoxicity in various cells types and on their bioactivity
profiles when compared to reference compounds.
About BioMAP
BioSeek's proprietary BioMAP technology platform bridges the
gap between in vitro and in vivo testing to connect primary
human cell-based assay data to clinically relevant results.
Compounds tested in BioMAP Assay Systems generate biological
activity profiles that are compared to those of thousands of
well-characterized agents in our proprietary BioMAP database,
using a variety of predictive computational analyses. BioMAP
Assay Systems are physiologically relevant and concurrently
provide multifactorial readouts relevant to compound efficacy
and safety. Thus, a compound's detected activities
effectively preview in vivo results and forecast potential
clinical outcomes. The BioMAP technology platform is
consistently reproducible within and between assays, is high
throughput, and supports drug discovery programs from library
screening to lead optimization and candidate selection. For
more information on BioMAP, please visit our website at www.bioseekinc.com.
About the US EPA ToxCastTM Program
The U.S. EPA ToxCastTM Program is developing
approaches to predict chemical toxicity using data from
high-throughput and high content in vitro assays. The goal of
ToxCastTM is to develop and verify
"toxicity signatures," which are algorithms using
in vitro and in silico data to predict in vivo toxicities.
Phase I of ToxCastTM has produced data from
>300 chemicals, ~500 in vitro assays and ~100 in vivo
endpoints, providing a powerful dataset for evaluating the
applicability of various analytic approaches for
predicting the potential for an adverse response. The initial
results from Phase I of the ToxCastTM program
were presented on May 14-15, 2009 at the First
ToxCastTM Data Analysis Summit held in Research
Triangle Park, NC. Phase II of the ToxCastTM
program will expand on and verify the ability of this
approach to predict potential human toxicity. In Phase III,
ToxCastTM will expand the list to thousands of
environmental chemicals, delivering an affordable,
science-based system for decision- makers to prioritize
chemicals for more detailed toxicological evaluations.
About BioSeek
BioSeek, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Asterand plc
(LSE: ATD), a leading supplier of high quality human tissue
and tissue-based services. BioSeek improves the success rate
of pharmaceutical research and development by integrating
human biology from the earliest stages of drug discovery
onward through its unique BioMAP® predictive human-based
models. Our mission is to accelerate target discovery and
drug compound validation and enable our clients to take safer
and more effective drugs into the market.
For more information about Asterand and BioSeek, please visit
http://www.asterand.com.
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Contacts: BioSeek LLC
Ivan Plavec, VP Business Development Tel: +1 (650) 416 7629