Biological and Small Molecule Therapeutics

Screening of Small Molecules

Northwestern University currently houses ChemCore, one of the nation’s most advanced chemical screening facilities that offer drug discovery services to university scientists.

Automated High-Throughput Screening of Ion Channels

Automated Electrophysiology Facility features a dual 384-well automated planar patch clamp system (NanionSyncropatch 768-PE), which was first of its kind in North America, along with additional automation for liquid handling (LabCyte Echo 550), high-capacity cell electroporation (MaxCyte STX) and automated cell counting (Beckman ViCell). This platform allows high-fidelity, gigaseal-capable, parallel recording of up to 768 ion channels and can be adapted to record from many cell types relevant to kidney research, including podocytes, tubular epithelial cells, endothelial cells, immune cells and iPSC-derived cells.

Recombinant Design and Construction

Powerful artificially constructed biologics have emerged in recent decades for the treatment of human diseases. Many are chimeric fusion proteins. The most common scheme is the “carrier + payload” design. Carrier tags have been developed to achieve: targeted delivery, high-order-assembly or bidirectional cell-to-cell coupling and transactivation. Services include pilot-scale recombinant production and functional testing.