mRNA vaccines are developing very quickly with dozens of ongoing clinical trials against cancers or infectious diseases (e.g. HIV or more recently SARS-Cov-2). Recombinant monoclonal antibody (mAB) based treatments have proven their efficacy. Nevertheless, researchers are now considering using messenger RNA (mRNA) technologies for the development of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines.

Many initiatives led by worldwide scientific networks are currently being launched to decipher cellular mechanisms involved in SARS-CoV-2 cellular entry. For example, a recent study has identified 332 high confidence SARS-CoV-2-human protein-protein interactions (Gordon D.E. at al. “A SARS-CoV-2-Human Protein-Protein Interaction Map Reveals Drug Targets and Potential Drug-Repurposing” (March 2020) bioRxiv). All these efforts are aimed at rapidly discovering antiviral drugs with proven efficacy, and at developing vaccines to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks. This crisis also enables pharma & biotech companies to reposition their existing antiviral drugs (Harrison C. “Coronavirus puts drug repurposing on the fast track” (Feb. 2020), Nature). In this post, we’ll introduce new, recently released in vitro assays and SARS-CoV related chemical compounds and compound libraries to support COVID-19 early phase drug discovery projects.

Thanks to its capability to recruit the natural protein degradation system of a cell, PROTACs (PROteolysis TArgeting Chimera) appears as a very promising technology in cancer therapy and disease treatment. As a distributor of innovative reagents for life science researchers, tebu-bio provides you with all the necessary tools to develop or test your own PROTACs system.

Neuronal polarity is essential for the proper development, growth, and physiology of neurons. Within neurons, microtubules (MTs) and motor protein polarities are required for establishing and maintaining neuronal polarity. However, unanswered questions remain: 1. Why are some cytoplasmic molecules in axons but not dendrites? 2. How do MAPs become compartmentalized differently in each type of neurite? 3. Why does a neuron have a single axon but multiple dendrites?⁵ To help you, the researcher, to answer these questions (as well as many others regarding MT functions in the central nervous system!) for a number of years now we’ve been providing a reliable range of kits by Cytoskeleton Inc. Their highly useful reagents include the Signal-Seeker Enrichment kits for quantifying levels of endogenous PTMs such as acetylation, tyrosine phosphorylation, ubiquitination, and SUMOylation, as well as purified cytoskeletal proteins (e.g., actins, tubulins, kinesin and dynein motors) and functional assay kits to measure the activities of these same proteins.