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 | Glycotechnology
Carbohydrates are, together with nucleic acid and proteins, one of the most important classes of molecules for life. The study of how carbohydrates play a vital role in living systems is the aim of glycobiology. The scope is further extended to glycoscience when glycobiology is approached from an inter-disciplinary scientific perspective.
The increasing number of research efforts and the consequent rise in the commercialization activity in this market indicates that glycoscience is an emerging field in the arena of modern biotechnology. In less than a decade, glycosciences has taken center stage in novel approaches to healthcare.
Supported by multiple federal research funding mechanisms, ADA has been pioneering a unique position in the glycotechnology market that focuses on developing new tools to enhance the research capabilities in glycobiology and glycoscience. ADA’s glycotechnology research has developed two products to be launched in 2008 - a ready-to-use slide platform for fabrication of carbohydrate microarrays, and glyconanoparticles for imaging, labeling, flow cytometry bioassays, and drug delivery.
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|  Carbohydrate MicroArray Slides
In work funded by the National Institutes of Health and through collaboration with the Carbohydrate Microarray laboratory of Stanford University, ADA Technologies has developed the first ready-to-use slides in the world for fabrication of carbohydrate microarrays. These Carbohydrate Microarrays allow high-throughput, parallel analyses of proteins and DNA for carbohydrate-binding activities and elucidation of their ligands.
Carbohydrate Microarray Uses and Markets
Recent improvements in technology and research in the biological, life sciences, and medical fields have led to the creation of microarrays, which are miniature arrays of biochemical fragments attached to glass slides. By allowing scientists to view and analyze the expressions of thousands of compounds simultaneously, microarrays are revolutionizing medicine and medical research. The opportunity to use microarrays to study carbohydrates also holds great promise for disease detection and prevention.
Markets for microarray technologies include: pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, the agrochemical industry, diagnostics, consumer products companies, academic research centers, private and government research foundations, and clinical reference laboratories.
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|  ADA’s Innovative Carbohydrate Microarray Technology
ADA’s novel 3D carbohydrate slides are the first ready-to-use platform substrate specifically designed for fabrication of carbohydrate microarrays composed of monosaccharides, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. This substrate allows the fabrication of carbohydrate microarrays with a wide range of structurally diverse carbohydrate probes (mono-, oligo, and polysaccharides) without any requirement of chemical modification. By eliminating chemical modification, our technology enhances the validity of test results when compared to techniques which require modification of the carbohydrate molecule while decreasing the cost and effort involved in fabricating an array. The versatility and ease of ADA’s Carbohydrate Microarray method will provide a common platform for scientists to characterize carbohydrate interactions in a rapid manner.
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|  Glyconanoparticles and Glycobeads
ADA Technologies Inc has developed an ingenious approach to create water soluble, stable and biologically active glyconanoparticles/beads. Using a novel single-step solution procedure to conjugate carbohydrates onto the surface of nanoparticles such as fluorescent semiconductor Quantum dots, Gold nanoparticles, and magnetic nanoparticles, ADA have overcome the numerous problems related to coupling glycan biomolecules to nanoparticles. These glyconanoparticles have an unlimited number of applications in biological and biomedical fields. For example, the glyco-QDs present the carbohydrate antigens in a three-dimensional and polyvalent array, conferring biological specificity. As such, they provide a customizable tool for visualising and investigating the antigens involved in cellular adhesion and potentially other biological phenomena. The water soluble, stable and biologically active carbohydrate/Quantum dots are useful tools for in in-vivo and in-vitro screening diagnosis and therapeutic techniques, such as flow cytometry. | |
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