#cellbasedassaydevelopment

Cell-based assays, over the recent years, have made a strong foray across a range of disciplines for life sciences. However, for anyone looking to get a grasp on understanding cell-based assay development and subsequent uses, it is worthwhile to know different types and their relevance. Read on!

For decades, cell-based assays have been used to determine how a particular drug, once administered, will affect an organism. They have emerged as an effective method for discovering biological drugs for pharmaceutical use. Cell-based assays can serve as a viable alternative for biological drug discovery that complements a variety of other technologies as well. Traditionally, cell-based assays had been used as a means for the secondary screening of new drugs. However, these days, assays are being used more and more frequently as the primary method of drug discovery and screening. This article provides an overview of cell-based assay and highlights some of the factors that can determine the success of an assay.

Assays are essentially tests. Bioassays are tests that are used to measure the potency of an active ingredient in the drug by measuring its effects on cells, tissues, or living animals. Cell-Based Assays, as the name suggests, are tests that are performed within a cell. Cell-Based Assays are conducted for several reasons. Sometimes the cytotoxicity of a substance (that is, whether the substance is toxic to the cells) is measured. Other times, as mentioned before, they are used to test at what concentration a substance produces the optimal effects in the test subject. A variety of parameters can be measured through a cell-based assay: radioactivity, luminescence, absorbance, fluorescence, etc. The key feature of a cell-based assay is that it must produce a detectable signal so that the parameter being measured can be determined. Cell-based assays employ a series of reagents for this purpose. What matters the most is the robustness of the signal. It is also important that the signal does not go off with the control experiment when the standard procedure is being tested. However, the same detectable signal must be produced when the same concentration of the substance is tested again. What this means is that the reproducibility of the assays is a necessary factor.

The successful development and use of cell-based assays can have a huge impact on the cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical research. Evaluating the biological effects of chemical compounds requires multiple different types of approaches, including molecular, cellular, and biochemical. The first step towards such evaluation includes the successful execution of cell-based and in vitro assays. This article talks about the importance of high-quality cell-based assay development while highlighting six ways to make the process less time-consuming and more cost-effective.