In vitro assays offer a cost-effective, efficient, and highly reliable way to screen candidate compounds in the early stages of drug development. Whether identifying promising, novel agents or aiming to enhance existing treatments, in vitro assays can be applied to a wide range of systems, from simple mono-cultures of immortalized cell lines to complex cultures of patient-derived tissue samples or iPSC-derived cells.
Benefits include:
Scalable to high-throughput formats
Ability to isolate, control, and study specific pathways or systems of interest
Fast turnaround time compared to in vivo assays
OUR IN VITRO ASSAY SERVICE OFFERINGS
IMAGING & ANALYSIS
You send us plates with cells that have been fixed & stained, and we'll send you data. Learn more
READY-2-GO
Defined assay offerings across a range of disease and therapeutic areas. Learn more
CELL PAINTING
Compare your compounds' effects against those of known drugs. Learn more
BESPOKE ASSAYS
Custom assays to answer your specific, complex biological questions. Learn more
"We worked with PhenoVista over a period of almost two years on an exploratory project that came with multiple layers of complexity. We were impressed by the scientific rigor and ingenuity that is part of the culture at PhenoVista. James and team are true collaborators, and they proactively shared ideas to help us achieve our goal. Paired with excellent communication and flexibility to accommodate the scientific-discovery path, we can honestly say that it was a joy to work with PhenoVista."
Dr. Steve Rodems, VP Research and Non-clinical Development | Travere Therapeutics
OUR EXPERTISE
Our goal is to provide you with better data faster, so that you can identify potential, adverse outcomes of your therapeutic candidate early in drug development. By utilizing clinically relevant cell models and cutting-edge, high-content imaging techniques, we provide invaluable insights and support towards your research.
We are a team of scientists, engineers, data scientists, and support staff, who are incredibly passionate about biology and how it propels our world forward. With diverse backgrounds ranging from plant biology to neuroscience, we're able to deliver breakthrough solutions for your most challenging biological questions. We are proud to say that we love what we do and that we get to do it together.
We combine the best automated confocal imaging with scalable liquid handling and insightful informatics to create and implement custom, high content imaging-based phenotypic assays.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Assay Design & Development
PhenoVista’s core capabilities focus on the development, execution, and analysis of cell-based assays through high-content imaging across numerous areas of biology/disease. We routinely design, develop, and run assays that generate diverse readouts at the cellular and subcellular levels, including, but not limited to, cytotoxicity, target identification, target validation, therapeutic efficacy, mode-of-action determination, and therapeutic delivery.
Protocol transfer is not required. Our bespoke assay services offer tailorable, comprehensive solutions that span initial assay development and setup, staining and imaging, and data analysis and mining. Clients can choose to collaborate with us at any point in this process. However, we also can certainly onboard customer protocols, fixed-cell plates, stained-cell plates, or previously captured images for downstream processing and analysis. We can also incorporate outbound technology transfer into project plans, should clients prefer to transition any developed assay protocol back to their organization for subsequent in-house use.
We can utilize a wide array of cell types in our assay services, including immortalized, primary, iPSCs, and patient-derived cells.
While we do not offer tissue analysis, we have established expansive 3D, high-content imaging assays to characterize more complex, physiologically relevant cellular models, such as spheroids, organoids, and 3D bioprinted co-cultures that incorporate diverse cell types.
We have extensive expertise in developing and working with 3D, in vitro cell models including spheroids, organoids, and 3D, bioprinted co-cultures.
We can incorporate a wide array of cell types into the 3D models we offer. These include, but are not limited to, immortalized cells, primary cells (including immune cells), iPSCs, and/or patient-derived cells. We have used these models in diverse assays, such as CAR-T cell-mediated cancer organoid cytotoxicity, synovial-joint modeling, and gut neurosphere differentiation.
Yes - we can design time-resolved studies based on two different approaches. For studies that require fully kinetic readouts, we can utilize live cells that either express fluorescently tagged marker(s) and/or are compatible with fluorescent indicator dyes that do not impact cell viability and image over time in our live cell-enabled imaging instruments. This approach is best suited to small-scale projects that do not require high-throughput data generation. If the study design incorporates analysis of markers that require fixation and/or high-throughput assessment, we can set up a multi-timepoint workflow.
Assay Readouts
Depending on the assay design, we have the flexibility to evaluate a broad spectrum of therapeutic agents, including, but not limited to, small molecules, targeted therapeutic antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, biologics (such as natural products and peptides), and therapeutic siRNAs.
The types of markers and readouts we can accommodate are dependent on the robust detection reagents available that address the relevant biology and are compatible with our in-house, high-content imaging platforms.
Theoretically we can accommodate assessment of any number of markers, provided that robust detection reagents are available that address the relevant biology and are compatible with our in-house, high-content imaging platforms. We define “palettes” of up to four compatible markers per grouping, tailored to ensure cross-compatibility in the staining workflow and to minimize potential spectral crosstalk between fluorophores. Each project may incorporate use of one or more palettes to capture all desired measurements.
Our core expertise is based in assay development and high-content imaging and analysis. If your project requires generation of complementary data sets to achieve your goal(s), we can offer parallel generation of cellular samples for external analysis as a deliverable. Where appropriate, we may suggest partnering with one of our collaborators to analyze these samples, and we can incorporate contracting these additional services into your project plan.
