Structural Biology & Drug Discovery Outsourcing Services
We offer advanced structural biology outsourcing services leveraging cutting-edge technology and extensive experience in protein crystallography and structure-based drug design.
Your Trusted Partner in Structural Biology & Fragment-Based Drug Discovery
SARomics Biostructures’ structural biology and fragment-based drug design outsourcing services are provided to the biotech industry, large pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions. The company was established in 2006 as a research-focused contract research organization (CRO) by scientists with extensive experience in structural biology and structure-based drug design. It rapidly gained recognition as a leading service provider across North and South America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. A video presentation of the company and company services by Björn Walse, the CEO of SARomics Biostructures, provides more details.
Our comprehensive range of outsourcing structural biology services is backed by a state-of-the-art core technology platform that ensures the success of your project. An overview of our services is provided below.
MAX IV Laboratory in Lund, home to the BioMax beamline (video presentation), is considered one of the world’s best synchrotron radiation facilities, just a few kilometers from our labs at Medicon Village.
Discover how SARomics Biostructures’ Services can benefit you
Explore our extensive services in protein X-ray crystallography, protein NMR spectroscopy, fragment screening & fragment-based drug design
Protein X-ray crystallography has played a crucial role in advancing structural biology. Our high-throughput protein X-ray crystallography services pipeline is based on our FastLane™ Premium and FastLane™ Standard off-the-shelf protein structure libraries, and it offers over 500 verified drug targets that are ready to be crystallized with your chosen ligand (FastLane™ Premium) or expressed, purified, and crystallized according to verified protocols (FastLane™ Standard) with a turnaround time of a few weeks. We also offer gene-to-structure services, which include cloning, expression, purification, crystallization and X-ray structure determination. We use in-house expression systems in our gene-to-structure pipeline. Our structural biology and drug discovery services platform benefits from our proximity to the BioMax X-ray beamline at the MAX IV synchrotron laboratory in Lund. This location provides considerable flexibility in beamline access and X-ray data collection, thus enabling rapid structure elucidation.
Please view our knowledge center for the practical aspects of our protein crystallography and crystallization services. Our publications page provides examples of structural biology projects we have contributed to.
Recent advancements in NMR instrumentation over the past few decades have established NMR spectroscopy as a crucial tool in structural biology and drug discovery services. It is indispensable for determining the structures of small, flexible proteins and peptides, as well as for exploring protein-ligand interactions.Our access to high-quality, state-of-the-art NMR spectroscopy instrumentation allows us to offer comprehensive peptide and protein NMR spectroscopy (BioNMR) services for protein structure determination and fragment screening. Below is a list of our service packages, which can be tailored to the specific needs of any project.
For practical information regarding NMR spectroscopy experiments, please visit our knowledge center.
- Peptide NMR & protein NMR assignment, secondary structure assessment
- Peptide NMR & protein NMR structure determination
- Protein-ligand & protein-protein complex structure determination
- Fragment screening using 1D or 2D NMR spectroscopy
- Epitope mapping and dissociation constant (Kd) determinations for compounds
- Higher order structure (HOS) comparability analysis of biosimilars, formulation characterization and optimization
- Expression and purification of 2H, 15N, and 13C-labelled protein in E.coli for NMR spectroscopy studies and structure determination
The contribution of structural biology to our understanding of the basic principles of antibody structure and function and the discovery and development of new biologics cannot be overestimated. SARomics Biostructures structural biology services platfrom has built up a team with a high level of experience and expertise in analyzing monoclonal antibodies, antibody-antigen complex structures, and comparability analysis of biosimilars using X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy. Our contribution is well documented in several case studies.
Our services for antibody characterisation by NMR spectroscopy and protein X-ray crystallography and comparability studies of biosimilars’ higher-order structure (HOS) using 13C-natural abundance 2D-NMR spectroscopy are fast and cost-efficient (see our blog article on NMR in comparability studies).
Our monoclonal antibody structure services can assist with the following:
- Epitope definition to file stronger IP
- Understanding the mode of action
- Structure-based antibody engineering: affinity maturation, humanization, antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), etc.
- Structural characterization of protein drugs for regulatory purposes
Structure-based drug discovery at SARomics Biostructures’ structural biology services platform is run in close collaboration with RG Discovery. The platform enables fragment screening, hit validation, and lead generation for various protein targets. At the platform’s core is our proprietary weak affinity chromatography (WAC™), a cost-efficient, high-throughput technique for fragment screening and fragment-based discovery. Over the time since introduction, we have gained extensive experience creating high-quality starting points for structure-based hit-to-lead optimization programs (see our blog post on WAC™). We focus on driving the project through lead optimization to candidate drug generation (case studies). Advantages of the WAC™ technique include:
- Robust and accurate (validated against NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography)
- Quick set-up and workflow (3 weeks turnaround)
- High throughput (>5000 cmpds/week)
- Low material consumption (<5 mg protein)
- Find mM hits by screening fragments at low concentrations (1-5 μM)
- Hit rates from 1% to 20% (avg 6%)
We also offer NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography fragment screening, as well as DNA encoded library screening in collaboration with Vipergen. Please visit our methods and knowledge center for a discussion of different strategies in structure-based drug design.
Crystallization-Grade Recombinant Proteins For Research And Analytic Purposes
Highly purified proteins are essential for any structural biology project. Our comprehensive catalog features high-purity, crystallization-grade drug-target recombinant proteins meticulously expressed and purified to the highest standards in our cutting-edge protein lab. These proteins have undergone rigorous characterization using biophysical methods, and their suitability for crystallization has been validated.
Make sure not to miss our featured blog posts!
In this post, we discuss the unique structure of macrocyclic peptide drugs (often 4 to 24 amino acids), which fall between small-molecule drugs and biologics (such as monoclonal antibodies).
Crystallographic Fragment Screening: Techniques & Applications
Technical developments have made crystallographic fragment screening the most effective biophysical method for screening fragment libraries. Here, we provide a brief overview of the method and its requirements.