Discovery and Pre-clinical Tools

Facile material access allows the development of drug discovery tools previously unavailable for the carbohydrate molecule class:

• Biochemical applications. Carbohydrate based assays historically have utilized heterogeneous carbohydrates derived from biological sources, leading to difficulties in identifying active components. The ability to produce pure, defined carbohydrates will greatly enable the development of robust carbohydrate-based assays, critical to lead identification and optimization.
• Discovery tools. Traditional drug discovery utilizes a wide variety of discovery tools including compound libraries and compound screening arrays. Defined molecule libraries allow for screening of diverse carbohydrate sequences in biochemical and cell based assays.

The ability of Ancora’s carbohydrate synthesis platform to provide unlimited access to synthetic carbohydrate molecules facilitates the development of discovery tools that can be applied to the carbohydrate-based drug discovery process. Several discovery tools have been generated and utilized at Ancora, including carbohydrate arrays, carbohydrate-protein conjugates and carbohydrate-based delivery vehicles.

• Carbohydrate Arrays. Ancora has established carbohydrate microarray technology utilizing synthetic glycans. Arrays are produced through the covalent attachment of synthetic linker-bearing carbohydrates to glass slides. Ancora has the capability to produce arrays of varying layouts with multiple synthetic carbohydrates for use in screening and assay development.
• Glycoconjugates. Ancora has extensive expertise in the production of carbohydrate-substrate conjugates utilizing synthetic glycans. Conjugates are produced through the ligation of synthetic, linker-bearing carbohydrates to various substrates yielding homogeneous conjugates with defined carbohydrate content, and can be utilized to evaluate a broad array of biological functions The ability to produce well-defined conjugates is a major advance over biosynthetic conjugates which vary in carbohydrate length, copy number and presentation.
• Automation. Ancora has developed a proprietary automated synthesizer designed for solid-phase carbohydrate synthesis. Our third generation instrument enables the controlled delivery of reagents, rapid purification of intermediates and programmed temperature control. These advantages enable the system to perform sensitive chemistry in a fully automated and user friendly platform.