If you're involved in cancer research or drug development, understanding the intricacies of cell line screening and how it translates to clinical relevance is crucial. Whether you're a researcher looking to enhance your study's efficiency or a biotech company seeking reliable cell line data, OmniScreen™ offers a comprehensive suite of services designed to meet your needs.
Let's explore some of the most common inquiries about this innovative service.
1. What does Crown Bioscience offer in relation to large-scale cell line screening?
Crown offers a comprehensive solution for cell line screening needs, featuring over 500 properly licensed, well-annotated and characterized tumorigenic cell lines available for screening in both 2D or 3D spheroid formats.
2. What types of assays and studies do you offer?
Crown offers a wide range of services including high throughput screening, in vitro drug combination studies with both 2D and 3D formats, cycle analysis, cell migration/invasion assays, angiogenesis assays, apoptosis assays, target validation studies, together with IO studies as well as pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics analysis.
3. What is the advantage of using 3D format in cell line screening?
Using 3D formats in cell-based assays offers several advantages over traditional 2D formats.
- Physiological relevance: Cells grown in a 3D environment more closely mimic the complex architecture and microenvironment of tissues in vivo compared to cells cultured in traditional 2D monolayers.
- Cell-cell interactions: In 3D cultures, cells are able to interact with neighboring cells in a manner that more closely resembles their natural environment. This allows for the study of cell-cell communication, cell signaling pathways, and other complex interactions that are difficult to replicate in 2D cultures.
- Drug penetration and distribution: 3D cultures allow for better assessment of drug penetration and distribution within tissue-like structures.
4. Can your cell line screening services support drug combination studies?
Yes, our combination test is highly flexible including fixed concentration combination, fixed ratio combination and matrix combination. The combination format can be also customized according to the requirements. Our advanced CrownSyn™ bioinformatics service for data interpretation, helps to understand the complex results of drug combination studies.
5. What is Multiparameter Screening?
Our multiparameter screening, powered by Revvity (PE) refers to a method of evaluating drug effects using high-content imaging (HCI) system. This approach allows researchers to simultaneously measure multiple parameters or characteristics of cells in response to drug treatment. Multiparameter screening involves measuring multiple aspects of cellular response, such as changes in morphology, proliferation, protein expression, and cellular localization, among others.
6. What is the significance of the cell lines being STR verified?
Short tandem repeat (STR) profiling has been widely used for human cell-line authentication, where it ensures the authenticity and purity of the cell lines. We also offer NGS-based single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping profiling with several advantages over established techniques used for cell line authentication including superior accuracy, sensitivity, and throughput. It can also be applied to advanced models such as organoids and xenografts that are increasingly being used for scientific research.
7. How can I access data on the licensed cell lines?
Data on the cell lines is accessible through XenoBase®, a searchable online database.
8. Why are licensed cell lines important for cell line screening?
Licensing the cell lines ensures that the cell lines used in our screenings are allowed to be used in commercial service studies for our clients, are well-characterized, and have a clear genetic background. By using properly licensed cell lines, our client retains full ownership of any results obtained from the experiments.
9. How does Crown Bioscience's cell line screening service translate the relevance of its screening results to in vivo and clinical settings?
It is always a challenging task to evaluate the relevance between in vitro cell line screening and in vivo results. However, Crown draws upon historical data from over thousands of studies and validated against in vivo data to assess the relevance. We also use cancer cells from patient-derived xenografts (PDX) or organoids derived from patient samples, which can provide more clinically relevant platforms for screening.
10. Can you adjust the screening process in real-time?
Yes, one of the distinguishing features of our screening service is the ability to provide clients with real-time readouts of screening results. This allows for immediate adjustments in experimental design based on incoming data, optimizing the final outcomes.
11. What are the advantages of incorporating automation, like multidrop, automated liquid handlers, and digital dispensers, into high-throughput cell screening processes?
The incorporation of automation technologies into high-throughput cell screening offers several significant advantages including:
- Enhanced Efficiency: Automated workstations facilitate highly automated cell handling and screening processes, markedly improving experimental efficiency. They are capable of handling multiple samples simultaneously and executing complex experimental workflows. This efficiency accelerates drug discovery and biological research by enabling broader screening across various sample populations.
- Increased Accuracy: Automation systems ensure highly precise liquid handling and operations, minimizing the risk of experimental errors. This precision improves the accuracy and repeatability of experimental results, thereby enhancing the credibility of the experiments conducted.
- Standardization: Automated workstations promote the standardization and normalization of experimental workflows. This standardization ensures consistency and comparability between different experiments, reducing experimental variability. It facilitates easier data comparison and sharing, thereby strengthening the reliability and reproducibility of research findings.
12. What is OmniScreen and what are its key benefits?
OmniScreen is a made-to-order cell panel screening service designed for cancer drug development, offering a vast selection of around 500 licensed cancer cell lines for detailed drug response screening. It provides real-time monitoring for on-the-fly experiment optimization, and the ability to tailor assays with 3D screening and variable durations. The service ensures consistent results with strict quality controls and offers in-depth bioinformatics support for data analysis. OmniScreen also allows for the study of drug combination effects, leveraging historical data to ensure relevance to clinical outcomes. It's designed for efficiency, with regular, scheduled screenings to streamline the research process.
Explore the capabilities of OmniScreen for your cancer research and drug development projects.
