Released on = May 3, 2007, 3:56 pm

Press Release Author = GTCbio

Industry = Pharmaceuticals

Press Release Summary = Dr. Frederick Monsma, Director of New Lead Discovery at
Schering-Plough Research Institute in Kenilworth, NJ will present on "A Label-free,
High Throughput Mass Spec Platform for Lipid Deacylase: BioTrove RapidFire" at
GTCbio's 2nd Assay Development & High Throughput Screening Conference on May 31-June
1 in Boston, MA.


Press Release Body = Dr. Frederick Monsma, Director of New Lead Discovery at
Schering-Plough Research Institute in Kenilworth, NJ will present on "A Label-free,
High Throughput Mass Spec Platform for Lipid Deacylase: BioTrove RapidFire" at
GTCbio's 2nd Assay Development & High Throughput Screening Conference on May 31-June
1 in Boston, MA.

Many robust methodologies have been developed over the years for assaying enzymatic
reactions. In particular, the development of sophisticated fluorescent labeling and
detection techniques have allowed the development of assays which are amenable to
high throughput and low volumes. Nevertheless, certain enzymatic targets cannot be
assayed in these formats due to the interference of fluorescent labels on enzymatic
activity. And, while radioactive substrates may obviate this issue, the need for
separation of substrate and product molecules, as well as a desire to reduce
radioactive usage, has limited the utility of this approach as well. Thus in recent
years, a number of approaches have been developed that do not rely on the use of
labeled substrates or other probes or tracers, and have allowed the assay of
previously intractable targets. The current study focuses on one such approach,
which utilizes high throughput Mass Spec detection of enzyme substrate and product,
the RapidFire HTMS system developed by BioTrove. This approach couples
rapid sample cleanup with specific and quantitative detection of substrate and
product molecules from an enzymatic reaction. We have utilized this approach to
conduct a screening campaign of a lipid deacylase, whose activity could previously
be quantitated only by a traditional, very slow LC/MS analysis. Data will be
presented which demonstrates that the RapidFire system delivers robust, quantitative
detection of this enzyme reaction, and can be used to identify enzyme inhibitors in
a screening campaign. In addition, our data demonstrate that characterization of
the identified inhibitors using HTMS yields affinity values which agree extremely
well with another direct binding detection technique. These results indicate that
the RapidFire HTMS system provides a robust and reliable high throughput assay
approach for screening of previously intractable targets.

GTCbio's 2nd Assay Development & High Throughput Screening Conference on May 31-June
1 will take place at the Omni Parker House in downtown Boston, MA. The meeting will
be held concurrently with GTCbio's 2nd Protein Kinases in Drug Discovery Conference.


For more information including a detailed agenda, exhibitor opportunities and
registration information visit
http://www.gtcbio.com/conference/conferenceDetails.aspx?id

Web Site = http://www.gtcbio.com

Contact Details = GTCbio organizes conferences specifically for the biomedical and
biopharmaceutical industries. Our goal is to facilitate the exchange of
biopharmaceutical and biomedical intelligence between industry leaders, academic and
government organizations, and the financial community.

GTCbio is a subsidiary of Global Technology Community, LLC, a privately held company
founded in 2002.

Contact: GTCBIO (626) 256-6405, (626) 256-6460 fax, raniah@gtcbio.com