Editor’s Take: Drug target discovery, biomarker identification, and disease biology research are increasingly demanding higher-resolution tools and services.
Syncell is commercially launching Syncell Discovery Services, a global sample-to-discovery program delivering insights from the company’s proprietary Microscoop Mint platform.
Specializing in next-generation proteomics analysis, Syncell aims to provide biopharma, translational research organizations, and academic institutions direct access to results. The Microscoop Mint platform promises in situ proteome coverage and precision, surpassing limits of traditional approaches to protein analysis.
Syncell Gives Reasons for Program Launch
Syncell Chief Commercial Officer Nikhil Rao, PhD, suggests demand is rising for higher-resolution tools in a few distinct areas. These include biomarker identification, drug target discovery, and disease biology research.
“Today’s technology is unable to discover novel biomarkers at the site-specific, subcellular locations where disease actually unfolds,” Rao said. “That gap matters.”
“During the pilot phase, demand quickly outpaced capacity, with customers identifying proteins not previously known to be at their site of interest.”
Nikhil Rao, PhD, Chief Commercial Officer, Syncell
Neuroscience, oncology and, broadly, drug discovery, have just one or two known biomarkers per indication, Rao says. Accordingly, this leaves the next generation of targets “hidden in plain sight.”
The pilot phase of Syncell Discovery Services, however, changed this perception, Rao revealed.
“Demand quickly outpaced capacity, with customers identifying proteins not previously known to be at their site of interest,” Rao said. “That traction has also translated into growing pharma interest in the Microscoop Mint platform itself.”
How Discovery Services Will Integrate
Syncell claims that Discovery Services’ highly precise subcellular workflow can uncover protein biology features that are normally inaccessible. And this is true among multiple approaches—conventional spatial proteomics, laser capture, and proximity labeling.
The program, the company says, delivers a unique path to unbiased nanoscopic proteomic insights. Also, the Microscoop Mint platform can be integrated with, for example, Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Orbitrap Astral mass spectrometer series.
Following the pilot phase, demand for Syncell Discovery Services is oversubscribed at launch, according to the company. Syncell says it is working to expand its service provider network worldwide.