Biacore
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Biacore is a life science products company, based in Sweden specializing in measuring protein-protein interaction and binding affinity. The technology is based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR), an optical phenomenon that enables detection of unlabeled interactants in real time. The SPR-based biosensors can be used in determination of active concentration as well as characterization of molecular interactions in terms of both affinity and chemical kinetics.
Biacore was founded in 1984 under the name of Pharmacia Biosensor AB, based on people from Pharmacia, Linköping Institute of Technology and the Swedish National Defense Research Institute (FOA, now renamed the Swedish Defence Research Agency or FOI). In 1996 the company changed its name to Biacore AB Corporation. In June 2006 GE Healthcare acquired Biacore for $390 million.[1]
Biacore's competition includes Attana AB[2] (a Stockholm based biotechnology firm), Bio-Rad Laboratories' ProteOn XPR36 Protein Interaction Array System (Hercules, California), Sapidyne's KinExA[3] platform (Boise, ID), ForteBio's[4] Octet QK,QK384,QKe,RED,RED384 instruments (Menlo Park, CA), SensiQ (Oklahoma City, OK) [5], BioNavis'[6] SPR NAVI 200 and Reichert's dual-channel SPR systems (Depew, NY).
A simple interaction experiment involves immobilizing one molecule of a binding pair on the sensor chip surface ("ligand", in Biacore parlance) and injecting a series of concentrations of its partner ("analyte") across the surface. Changes in the index of refraction at the surface where the binding interaction occurs are detected by the hardware and recorded as RU (resonance units) in the control software. Curves are generated from the RU trace and are evaluated by fitting algorithms which compare the raw data to well-defined binding models. These fits allow determination of a variety of thermodynamic constants, including the apparent affinity of the binding interaction.
