There’s something fishy going on in the drug screening labs

The majority of leads identified in conventional compound screening campaigns ultimately fail in human trials. This is often attributed to an inability to reach target tissues, metabolic inactivation or off-target toxicity. The zebrafish has recently emerged as an essential drug discovery model with the potential to transform the manner that new drugs are identified. Their small size and transparency facilitates using them in 384-well microplates for low cost screening. Two recent publications highlight the diversity of applications involving this organism. Drs. Robert Kelsh of the University of Bath, UK and Elizabeth Patton, of the University of Edinburgh, UK, along with international colleagues, identified altered pigmentation pathway response using the ScreenWell® kinase and phosphatase inhibitor libraries (Colanesi et al (2012) Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 25; 131–143). Dr. David Raible and co-authors at the University of Washington, Seattle employed the Screen-Well® FDA Approved library to identify compounds that affect aspects of hair cell biology, relevant to hearing loss (Esterberg, et al. Drug Discov Today: Dis Model (2012), doi:10.1016). Together, these studies emphasize the value of zebrafish in testing on- and off-target activities of clinically active drugs.

Through our deep scientific expertise and industry-proven manufacturing capabilities, Enzo Life Sciences provides a comprehensive set of solutions for the toxicology market, including cell-based assays and focused compound libraries, as well as assay kits and reagents for biomarker detection and pathway analysis.

Browse all our TechNotes by Interests