Soh - Rapid Invitro Directed Evolution (RiDE) Technology

TEAM
BioDiscovery Tools

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Affinity reagents are highly specialized molecules that bind tightly and specifically to their target molecules; it is the basis of modern biotechnology. Despite significant advances over the last 30 years in generating affinity reagents, there continues to be limitations imposed by the high cost, lengthy development time, limited availability, and often inadequate biochemical properties of affinity reagents for many applications. This rings especially true in advanced diagnostic and proteomic applications, where the demand for new reagents far exceeds the rate at which they can be produced. Consequently, there remains an urgent need for technologies to identify and produce ligands with high affinity and specificity to particular target molecules quickly, efficiently, reproducibly, and inexpensively. Towards this end, our laboratory develops extremely rapid screening technologies to select and evolve nucleic acid based (aptamers) and peptide based molecules using novel microfluidics technology.