Dr. Biao Xi, Principle Scientist at ACEA Biosciences receives the 2014 JALA Authors Choice Award for His Study on Preclinical Cardiac Safety Assessment
San Diego, CA (PRWEB) February 24, 2014 -- Announced at the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening Conference and Exhibition in San Diego January 18-22, 2014, Dr. Biao Xi was awarded the 2014 JALA Authors Choice Award for his publication entitled “Functional Cardiotoxicity Profiling and Screening Using the xCELLigence RTCA-Cardio System”. This prestigious award recognizes the manuscript’s popularity among life science authors (citations) throughout 2013. This article, published in JALA (December 2011, Volume 16, Issue 6, Pages 415-421), was co-authored by Tianxing Wang, Nan Li, Wei Ouyang, William Zhang, Jieying Wu, Xiao Xu, Xiaobo Wang and Yama A. Abassi. To honor Journal Achievement Awards, the Journal of Laboratory Automation (JALA) now provides open-access to this article at JALA Online (jla.sagepub.com).
Cardiac liability continues to be a major topic of concern in drug development. Between 1990 and 2006, one third of all safety-related drug withdrawals were attributed to cardiotoxicity. Driven by the pharmaceutical industry, there has been a significant need to develop higher throughput and more predictive assays that can be used earlier in drug development to minimize both cost and risk. The xCELLigence RTCA-Cardio System (launched in 2010) is an impedance-based microelectronic detection system that monitors the beating function of cardiomyocytes in a 96-well format. The study led by Xi, et al validated the xCELLigence System by applying a variety of tool compounds and drugs with known mechanisms of action to mouse embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, and rat neonatal primary cardiomyocytes. The results demonstrate that the RTCA-Cardio System is able to sensitively and quantitatively detect the effect of ion channel and nonion channel modulators of cardiac function in real time. Furthermore, pro-arrhythmic compounds produce a characteristic beating profile, which may be reflective of the risk of arrhythmia. In addition, the ability to use the time resolution in the assay in conjunction with the physical beating of cardiomyocytes, the effect of certain compounds missed by electrophysiological readouts can be detected.
"We are excited to learn that Dr. Xi was elected for JALA Authors Choice Award this year,” said Dr. Yama Abassi, Vice President of ACEA Biosciences. "Since our 2011 JALA publication, we have seen quick adoption of our technology in the assessment of preclinical cardiac safety in pharmaceutical industry, academic institutions, CRO companies and governmental agencies. Specifically, the Safety Tox group at Roche established and published in Toxicol. Sci (2011; 123 (1): 281-289) a new metric, Predicted Proarrhythmic Score (PPS), which demonstrates an improvement in accuracy of predicting cardiac arrhythmias compared to hERG screening and QT prolongation studies. In addition, they believe that the RTCA-Cardio will not only help them in early discovery safety assessment, but open up new opportunities for investigating, cardiac biology, cell signaling and disease pathogenesis.”
Yama further commented, “With the recent focus of the US FDA to modify preclinical regulatory guidelines for assessment of cardiovascular risk and by focusing on arrhythmia, rather than QT prolongation, the xCELLigence RTCA-Cardio System is poised to play a significant role in Preclinical Cardiac Safety Assessment.”
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About the xCELLigence RTCA-Cardio System
The xCELLigence RTCA-Cardio System dynamically monitors cardiomyocyte beating and cellular events by impedance readings in a 96-well format. It records electrical impedance of cells grown on gold microelectrode arrays integrated into the bottom of each well of an E-Plate Cardio 96. In contrast to single-cell, acute techniques like patch clamp, the xCELLigence System provides real-time, label-free beating pattern analysis and is used in a fully controlled environment (within a tissue culture incubator) for continuous short-term and long-term experiments, allowing for more physiologically relevant data. The xCELLigence RTCA-Cardio System in combination with human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes has shown great promise as a highly predictive in vitro assay for assessment of drug induced cardiac liability. In 2013 alone, seven studies using cardiomyocytes with this system have been published. The results collectively showed that the xCELLigence RTCA-Cardio system addresses unmet needs of in vitro cardio safety screening by:
• Being a high-throughput method for detecting functional cardiotoxicity (effects on short-term and long-term cardio beating activity) and general toxicity in vitro
• Having good correlation with clinical arrhythmogenic risk
• Providing insight to compound mechanism of action
About ACEA Biosciences
Founded in 2002, ACEA Biosciences, Inc. (ACEA) is a privately held biotechnology company pioneering in the development and commercialization of high-performance microelectronic systems for cell-based assays. With headquarters in San Diego, CA, ACEA has developed proprietary real-time, label-free cell-based assay technology and launched its first product in 2004. Today, the company has a product line of 6 instruments which utilize this technology with different functionalities and throughputs. They enable different types of cellular-based assay applications. ACEA continuously developing new technology. The systems are commercialized globally under the xCELLigence® brand with over 1,000 instrument placements worldwide and over 500 peer-reviewed publications. This technology is being utilized in academic labs, government institutions, biotech and pharma companies across the world in diverse fields such as cancer, regenerative medicine, inflammation, infectious diseases, and toxicity research. For more information, http://www.aceabio.com.
For further information please contact:
ACEA Biosciences, Inc.
Dr. Leyna Zhao
Phone: +1 858 724 0928 x 3066
email: lzhao(at)aceabio(dot)com
Amy de Leon, ACEA Biosciences, Inc., http://www.aceabio.com, +1 8587240928 Ext: 3090, [email protected]
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