The Biotage® Selekt Flash purification system is designed for the rapid and simple isolation of target molecules from complex mixtures. Typically, this is seen in the area of drug discovery, where large numbers of molecules are synthesized in order to find active pharmaceutical ingredients for future pharmaceutical use. However, flash purifications can be employed in any work that involves the requirement to purify compounds, which is most branches of chemistry.
On a scenic drive up the I-15 in southern California, I got to take a tour of the undergraduate lab at California State University, San Marcos with Dr. Robert Iafe. His lab is one of the first to have the new Biotage® Selekt Flash Purification System paired with the Sfär columns. We discussed the impact on his undergraduates broadening capabilities to learn about new instruments, and how it has affected his own research in his goals to gain tenure at the university.
On a beautiful sunny day in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I travelled to the University of North Carolina campus where I spoke with Dr. Alfredo Picado about how using our new Sfär columns has impacted his time, output, and overall efficiency in his lab.
Dr. Picado works within the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), housed under the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina. Their team consists of chemists and biologists who all work under the SGC. We were able to discuss Dr. Picado’s most recent project at SGC and why Biotage’s columns made such an impact.
"With using the entire workflow, we're able to do things more efficiently," stated Dr. Justin Anglin during our interview in February at the Center for Drug Discovery at Baylor College of Medicine. Keep reading to find out more about how his role as the Director helped influence their state-of-the-art lab to include a full suite of Biotage products.
"50% of my time as a Ph.D. was spend baby-sitting columns," stated Dr. László Kürti during our interview in February. Keep reading to find out more about how his team was able to increase their productivity by implementing Automated Flash Purification into their lab work.
Pharmaceutical researchers feel real pressure to increase their R&D productivity by ‘doing more with less’. Despite having limited internal resources and specialized expertise, discovery chemistry research labs are expected to be increasingly effective and efficient, and deliver drug targets faster to advance projects rapidly. However, a lack of effective tools and technologies results in low efficiency workflows, with slow and laborious lead generation and optimization as a result. To boost productivity, the iterative cycle of design-make-test-analyze (DMTA) must move to a ‘best-practices’ state to become faster, more predictable and less time-consuming. A key factor is availability of reliable purification systems from dependable vendors.
