Screening, Profiling and Analytical Facility (SPAF)
The NCCR TransCure screening, profiling and analytical facility (SPAF), located at the IBMM University of Bern, provides the workforce, expertise and equipment required to develop and validate screening assays for diverse transporter targets. We assist PIs from the individual projects to upscale their assays to use them to evaluate small molecules in a typical medium-throughput format (< 6'000 compounds) for primary target activity and, if required, for selectivity studies. Compounds are provided by the chemistry groups either as targeted sets selected by virtual screening, from CROs, or as a series of focused synthetic compounds generated in-house or in collaboration with industry partners.
More importantly, the SPAF offers a unique service at the University of Bern to investigate bioavailability, tissue distribution, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of probes and drug leads in vivo in different preclinical models by using high-end LC-MS/MS analytics.
A future focus is to engage in translational research. The SPAF has made fundamental contributions to better pharmacology and will continue its activity beyond NCCR TransCure. Look at this video describing our work:
