Overview

As the business service unit for Galapagos, a leadinggenomics-based drug discovery company, BioFocus DPIoffers superior adenoviral tools and services to meet your target discovery and validation needs:

• Adenoviral collections targeting the human genome
• SilenceSelect: knocking-down protein production using gene specific shRNA
• FLeXSelect: over-expressing specific proteins using full-length cDNA
• Production of custom adenoviruses expressing cDNA and shRNA constructs
• Production of purified adenoviruses
• Target discovery screening and validation services, including assay design

• Technology platform
  We employ the unique properties of adenoviruses to studygene function in human cells. These 'shuttle vehicles' candeliver cDNA or shRNA into a broad range of humanprimary cells. Through the resulting over-expression orsilencing of genes, complex functional studies on theresulting protein’s role in a specific biological pathway ordisease pathway can be performed. Our discoveryplatform offers several advantages over conventional approaches:

• Efficient delivery to a wide range of human primary cells
• Stable, transient and long-term expression
• Arrayed format for high-throughput readout

• cDNA and shRNA libraries
  SilenceSelect is a collection of shRNAs directed against over 4,500 human drugable transcripts. The use of the SilenceSelect adenoviral vectors results in the expression of shRNAs, which are further cleaved by the cell to form siRNAs. These siRNAs then facilitate efficient degradation of the mRNA of interest. Because the shRNAs are stably expressed in human cells over a long period of time (>10 days), complex assays, such as those involving cell differentiation can be performed. As illustrated in Table 1, all of the protein classes that are considered amenable to small molecule intervention are thoroughly represented in this collection. To browse the full contents of the SilenceSelect collection, visit www.silenceselect.com
  FLeXSelect is a collection containing more than 2,000 fulllength cDNAs corresponding to the human drugable and secreted genome. The high efficiency of the FLeXSelect adenoviral delivery system ensures ease of examining the over-expression of any gene. Combining the SilenceSelect and FLeXSelect libraries allows for complete and direct modulation of a gene or sets of genes of interest. The below table shows the number of knock-in constructs by target class. To browse the entire contents of the FLeXSelect database, visit www.flexselect.net
  Custom & purified adenoviruses
  In addition to our off-the-shelf cDNA and shRNA collections, we can generate viruses expressing constructs to either over-express or knock-down your gene of interest. We also offer custom purification of our adenoviruses. The high standards of our purified reagents allows for the progression of projects to in vivo animal studies. More about our product.
  We provide our partners everything from a single gene, to gene subsets and entire libraries for their in-house screening programs. Our adenoviral reagents can be supplied as either crude or purified preps depending on your experimental needs. We also offer a range of fiber-modified adenoviral constructs to ensure the greatest possible range of tropism.
  Target discovery collaborations
  We apply our expertise in developing disease models in human primary cells to identify novel, disease modifying targets. These targets then serve as a basis for effective drug discovery programs. Based on this unique technology platform, which combines our adenoviral collections with human cellular assays and state-of-the-art drug discovery expertise, we have become one of the world’s leading providers of target-to-drug discovery partnerships.