From the website -
Graffinity´s chemical microarray platform is built on a suite of proprietary tools:
* Goldfinger® surface chemistry
* ChemTag® array production
* HTSyn® miniaturized synthesis
* Plasmon Imager® label-free array detection
* JArray® visualization software
Graffinity is continuously strenghtening its intellectual property position.
The company is currently entertaining 22 patent applications and is protected by IP Insurance. Licensing opportunities exist...
Surface design is the key element of microarray technology.
Before Graffinity started its operation, the interaction of tethered, surface-bound small organic molecules with free proteins had been largely unstudied. Graffinity extensively developed a novel and unprecedented access to surfaces with minimal unspecific protein binding and maximized presentation of protein-specific ligands.
The surface chemistry is both compatible with label-free surface plasmon resonance as well as chemiluminescence detection and has been validated on about 50 different protein/ligand systems including a micellar preparation of a full G-protein coupled receptor.
After an extensive in-house optimization effort, a highly powerful surface design evolved that will be opening doors to all areas of protein research....
Molecular diversity immobilized on a chip surface is a highly efficient tool for the study of precious biological samples. Graffinity´s chemical microarrays present molecular diversity of small organic molecules. A chemical shuttle process provides for the creation of "arrayable" compounds: every compound synthesized at Graffinity is born with a reactive spacer moiety ("ChemTag") that releases the compounds after solid-phase assembly and subsequently recaptures the molecules in the microarray format.
This process generates soluble intermediates of chemtagged molecules for full quality control by state-of-the-art LC/MS and mass production of microarray copies...
With HTSyn Graffinity achieved to develop the first platform for microscale high-throughput solid-phase synthesis.
The versatile format is employed for the massively parallel "chemtagging" of chemical libraries. Based on special miniaturized reagent carriers, batches of up to 12,288 samples are routinely managed. Any solid-phase synthesis protocol is compatible with the fully automated system...
Graffinity´s chemical microarrays can be screened in a label-free fashion using our parallel Plasmon Imager instrument and microarray platform.
Up to 10,000 interaction events are recorded simultaneously on the instrument, which also allows to follow the evolution of binding patterns in real-time. The system is based on an optical arrangement for the spatially resolved imaging of surface plasmon resonance across large substrate areas such as microtiter plate formats. The plasmon imager is employing a novel design and is the first instrument of its kind.
Massively parallel label-free detection is considered one of the major technological breakthroughs at Graffinity....
Data visualization and data access is provided by JArray, a java software that presents chemo-biological information intuitively to the researcher´s eye.
Point-and-click tools connect the array-bound ligand structures with the result from the affinity fingerprint experiment.
The web version allows for direct data access through your standard web browser, the stand-alone version comprises powerful export functions to enable you to include the data in your favourite word processor, spreadsheet or molecular modeling software....
Graffinity´s array-aided drug discovery tackles the problem of molecular diversity "bottom up". Instead of creating arbitrary compound libraries and analysing the collection of High Throughput Screening hits for common structural features, Graffinity creates protein fingerprints directly from pharmacophore arrays. |
