Facilities and technologies

Innopharma’s chemical library comprises over 130.000 compounds, covering a high chemical diversity to maximize the probabilities of finding hits. It includes:

• known drugs for repurposing projects
• proprietary compounds
• sets of compounds focused on known targets as kinases or GPCRs
• natural products
• compounds with drug-like properties

This extensive variety of compounds is the major strength of our chemical library, which can be applied either to chemical biology or drug discovery projects.

• An automated sample storage system SampleStore SE at -20oC with a capacity of up to 600 000 samples in tubes and multiwell plates. The system allows automated cherry-picking of individual tubes and their presentation in a 96-well plate format for preparation of assay plates.
• Two acoustic dispensers:
  • One allows working with 96, 384 and 1536 well plates.
  • The other is integrated into a plate management platform with a plate centrifuge, a plate sealer, equipment for the removal of plate seals, a multidrop and an instrument for the removal and placement of caps on tubes of samples.

• Two triple-quadrupole UPLC-MS/MS systems for the development of compound quantification methods and a high-throughput system (Rapidfire) that allows the analysis of compounds in plates of up to 1536 wells and the possibility of parallel analysis with 12 different solvents and 12 cartridges for chromatographic separation.
• A nephelometer for detecting the solubility of compounds in 96- and 384-well plates.

Consisting of a robotic system that integrates a cell incubator, a dispenser with a 96-tip head, systems for covering and uncovering plates, pumps for washing tips and integrated with two automated microscopy equipment (Operetta and Operetta CLS). It also features Harmony software for automated image analysis.

• Isolated area for the growth of bacteria for DNA amplification and another for working with RNA.
• Equipment of electrophoresis, western-blot, thermal cyclers and automated gel analysis (iBright). In addition to its use in molecular studies, this equipment allows the execution of biophysical tests of affinity measurements by thermal displacement (Thermal Shift Assay).
• An AKTA system for protein purification.

Has a robotic table that integrates plate incubators, a washer, liquid dispensers, a pipetting robot, a carousel, and plate stackers. This table is coupled to a fluorescence image detector, a multifunctional detector and a label-free detector based on the quantification of dynamic mass redistribution.

• Liquid handling robots that allow the pipetting of liquids in multiple formats, enabling the below listed capabilities.
• Multifunction detectors that allow readings in plates from 6 to 1536 wells of multiple technologies: fluorescence, luminescence, absorbance, polarized fluorescence, FRET, BRET, BRET2, HTRF and AlphaScreen.
• Real-time fluorescence/luminescence detectors equipped with a 384-tip head.
• Liquid scintillation detectors for radioactive studies with the capacity to work with 96 and 384 well plates.
• Automated patch-clamp equipment, suitable for the study of ionic channels, changes in membrane potential and other tests for the safety and toxicology profiling of drug candidates.
• Flow cytometer with 4 lasers and 16 fluorescence channels with CCD detector capable of resolving particles smaller than 100 nm.
• System set of microelectrodes (Microelectrode Array) that allows the detection of the electrical activity of cells in 96-well plates equipped with microelectrodes.
• Luminex MagPix equipment for multiplexed analysis of up to 50 different analytes in the same well.

• Cell culture cabinets and CO₂ incubators adapted for the growth of cells both in monolayer and in suspension using spinner flasks.
• Disposable bioreactor systems for large-scale cell culture with oxygenation, pH and CO₂ control, and tangential filtration systems for efficient cell concentration.