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Cell-based assays and cell culture in general are often considered a separate discipline in life sciences. However, in reality there is hardly a discipline in which cell-based assays have not already found their use and the applications continue to grow. Find out more about the different types of cell-based assays available and why cell-based assays are relevant to such a wide range of disciplines.

Endotoxins are a component of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. Their detection is vital in the pharmaceutical and medical industry for product quality and safety.

The LAL assay ensures that sterile pharmaceutical products and medical devices are safe for human use. This test can be run efficiently and in high throughput on a plate reader.

DNA contains all the information for human life. Thus, it´s not surprising, that its relevance increased extensively since its discovery over the past decades. Various methods, from low- to high-throughput, rely on the application of accurate nucleic acid quantities. In this context the choice of method is very relevant and depends on the intended downstream analysis.

For many years, binding assays have been used extensively for fundamental biological research and are a key part of pharmacology and medicinal chemistry. Affinity binding assays are typically used to determine the strength of binding of a ligand (protein, peptide, or small molecule drug) to a target biomolecule.  Therefore, many experiments are aimed at determining the binding affinity of potential binding partners represented by the equilibrium dissociation constant KD, the concentration of ligand at which half the binding sites on a biomolecule are occupied at equilibrium. The target biomolecule could be another protein, antibody, DNA, RNA, G-protein coupled receptors, kinases, or a multitude of other receptors, which when activated by a ligand, produce a pharmacological effect in the body. 

Although the concept of fluorescence gain has always been hard to grasp, it is a make-or-break parameter in microplate reading. In fact, incorrectly selected gain settings can lead either to saturation or to bad quality data. 

Ischemia is the oxygen and nutrient deficiency that is triggered by a vascular congestion. A sudden recovery is called reperfusion. How can this process be studied in vitro? You can find out in this blog post.

Prion diseases are neurodegenerative pathologies caused by abnormally folded infectious proteins. Although pathogens typically rely on DNA or RNA to reproduce, in prion diseases the infectious agent is a self-propagating protein.

Viruses, nowadays more than ever, pose growing threats to our health, society, and economy. Virus assays suitable for analysing the mechanisms behind virus infections as well as quantifying related diagnostic parameters are key in understanding virus-host interactions and virus pathophysiology 1. In this regard, 50% Tissue Culture Infectious Dose (TCID50) assays are often used to quantify virus titers and are an important tool for the determination of virus infectivity and replication, both crucial parameters for the assessment and investigation of new treatments and therapeutics. 

Virus detection methods are used for different purposes in modern virology research. When applied to epidemiology, they can help to track and control pandemic outbreaks like SARS- CoV-2, swine influenza and many other diseases caused by viruses. But did you know, there are numerous virus detection methods available other than the commonly known PCR? This blog highlights some alternative virus detection methods, which can be run on microplate readers and therefore show great upscaling potential.