Immunoassay development and verification

We offer expertise in the development and validation of immunoassays for various applications including biopharmaceutical production and clinical chemistry. Immunoassays can be developed for various applications using many detection methods including:

• Absorbance
• Fluorescence
• Chemiluminescence
• Electrochemistry
• SERS
• analyse blood, serum and plasma samples

Antibody pairing and epitope specificity analysis

We can provide antibody pairing information to assist in the design of your immunoassay, in conventional sandwich ELISA or system applications to

• detect and quantify interaction molecules in situ and
• ensures localization of sub-cellular events, and
• reduces the risk of missing weak or transient interactions and
• improves detection specificity and sensitivity.

This would provide the added advantage of:

• High specificity
• High signal to background ratio
• Multiple epitope targets detection
  

Post-translational modification analysis

Post translational modifications (e.g. glycosylation) have been demonstrated to have significant effects on protein structure and function. Therefore its analysis using a range of physico-chemical techniques is of importance to manufacturers of proteins used for therapeutic or diagnostic.
Other protein modifications that can be detected include

• deamidation of asparagine and glutamine amino acid residues
• oxidation of methionine residues.

Protein analysis using proteomics and mapping using quantitative mass spectrometry

Proteins often function as components of larger complexes to perform a specific function, and formation of these complexes may be regulated. Thus characterizing protein complexes can offer important insights into protein function. We use advances in mass spectrometry (MS)-based techniques for the analysis of protein complexes and study

• metabolomics and proteomics
• Markers of protein, lipids and nucleotide damage (e.g. conformational changes and aggregation)
• Dietary bioactives and related precursors
• Biomarkers of metabolic, vascular and skeleto-muscular health
• Structural analysis

Sequencing – Genomics Service

The facility has the latest Applied Biosystems model 3730 capillary DNA sequencers allowing us to offer high throughput and high quality DNA sequencing and genotyping services. In addition, the facility has four Qiagen biorobots that are used for bacterial mini-prep DNA extraction and also offers a bacterial maxi-prep DNA extraction service. Offers the following services:

• Denovo Genome Sequencing
• Genome Resequencing
• RNA-seq
• Small RNA
• ChIP-seq
• Meth-seq
• Bioinformatics analysis and support (by special arrangement)