Drug discovery company GenNext Technologies has announced its receipt of a two-year, Phase II SBIR grant for a project titled "In-Cell Automated Flash Oxidation (IC-AutoFox) Protein Footprinting System." The grant was awarded by the National Institute of General Medical Systems (NIGMS) of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Aimed to extend the company’s Hydroxyl Radical Protein Footprinting (HRPF) technology to studies involving living cells, this award brings total funding from NIGMS for the GenNext platform to $9.5m.
The Flash Oxidation (Fox) Protein Footprinting System is currently used in the industry to perform higher order structure (HOS) analysis of proteins, with an emphasis on biologic therapeutics. The system is designed to help researchers develop safer and more effective biotherapeutics by revealing information on protein interactions and structural changes.
With the support of this grant, the company aims to develop an automated platform to study drug-induced HOS changes within living cells, with its first system designed for in vivo protein footprinting studies. This includes drug candidate activity for G protein-coupled receptor therapeutics and ion channel blockers. By studying drug response within living cells, GenNext claims, researchers will be able to obtain a more accurate depiction of efficacy and side effects.
"With this award, we will complete our in-cell protein footprinting R&D program, culminating in a revolutionary new tool to study protein structure, protein interactions, and drug interactions in living cells. Soon, researchers will study living cells with a new level of simplicity and elegance, while generating unprecedented levels of actionable data," said Scot R. Weinberger, founder and CEO of GenNext. "We’re truly delighted to receive our tenth NIGMS grant award as further validation of our leadership in commercialising novel and robust protein footprinting technology."
"It's very exciting to watch as the GenNext platform is being adopted by many different laboratories and emerges as an essential method in structural biology labs," said Professor Lisa Jones from University of California San Diego and inventor of in vivo protein footprinting. "I look forward to collaborating with the GenNext team to produce the world’s first in-cell protein footprinting system. As demonstrated in our laboratory, the application of this important technique to living tissues and small organisms will enable, for the first time, HRPF studies of storage diseases."
