Avalon GloboCare Corp (NASDAQ:AVCO). has announced the co-development of a novel, cell-free, in-silico system to facilitate its drug development efforts.
The company has partnered with the Institute for Synthetic Bioarchitectures at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna and others to develop the new technology.
Avalon noted that a study of the new technology was featured in the September 2021 issue of Membranes, an international, peer-reviewed journal.
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The new technology reveals that difficult-to-study cell membrane proteins can be efficiently expressed in a cell-free system, allowing for their evaluation as potentially druggable targets.
The technology expands Avalon’s ability to design and produce novel membrane proteins -- including receptors found on the surface of immune cells and cancer cells that are important for cell signaling and diseases such as cancer -- providing Avalon an efficient tool to screen and optimize potential therapeutic targets.
Proteins function within cells and are also present on cell surfaces, embedded within the cell’s outer membrane. These membrane proteins include cell surface receptors that function in cell signaling and regulation of communication with other cells and tissues. These molecules are important drug targets and include receptors on immune cells such as T-cells for the development of cellular immunotherapies.
Avalon said researchers used computer-based models, developed at the University of Vienna, to identify factors that optimize the expression of membrane proteins in a cell-free, in-silico system, resulting in high protein yield. The study demonstrated the success of this method by showing the ability to manipulate and express a drug target membrane protein, a human voltage-dependent anion channel, at a high yield.
The use of this novel technology, the company added, can improve knowledge about receptors and other membrane proteins to better understand the biology of drug targets and to develop novel therapies, including immunotherapies for cancer.
“Our partnership with BOKU researchers is yielding novel tools and discoveries that allow us to identify drug targets that have been traditionally out of reach due to the inability of existing technology to synthesize membrane proteins in a laboratory,” said Avalon CEO Dr. David Jin in a statement. “This approach will expand our capabilities and repertoire in designing novel targets for immuno-oncology and cellular medicine.”
The new technology is a direct result of a collaboration between the company and researchers at BOKU, the University of Vienna, the Science for Life Laboratory within the Division of Nanobiotechnology at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and the Department of Biochemistry at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
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