Avacta Analytical Partners with UCL

As part of the agreement, the EPSRC Centre will be taking advantage of Avacta’s unique Optim technology, an innovative, high throughput, micro-volume protein analysis and characterisation system that has been developed to reduce the time and cost of therapeutic protein pre-formulation studies, stability testing and formulation development. Dr Paul Dalby, Reader in Biochemical Engineering at UCL and Co-director of the Centre, explained: “We will be using Avacta’s Optim system to investigate the properties of proteins and other biologics. Ultimately, we want to gain an understanding of whether it is possible, based on these properties, to predict the eventual manufacturability and mode of delivery of new medicines.”

“Existing microplate-based and microfluidic methods of protein characterisation either use too much material or do not offer the high throughput we require.  We want to be able to measure around 50 to 100 protein samples every few hours, which can involve looking at many different conditions with the same protein. The Optim combines the best of both methods; its high throughput and capability to perform tandem measurements will enable us to obtain large amounts of data from very small sample volumes, very quickly.”