PhoreMost and ThinkCyte K.K formed a strategic research partnership aimed at advancing modern phenotypic drug screening using artificial intelligence (AI). The partnership leverages both companies’ technologies in high-throughput drug discovery, PhoreMost’s next-generation phenotypic screening platform, SITESEEKER®, and ThinkCyte’s AI-driven cell characterization and sorting platform, Ghost Cytometry®, with the aim of developing differentiated therapies for a range of diseases with unmet clinical need.
The SITESEEKER platform, based on PhoreMost’s core proprietary Protein Interference (PROTEINi) technology, probes the entire proteome to unmask new and unanticipated druggable sites, directly linking them to useful therapeutic functions, according to the company.
ThinkCyte officials say the company pioneered Ghost Cytometry, an approach that reportedly enables detection of novel, disease-related phenotypes.
By combining SITESEEKER to identify novel druggable targets with Ghost Cytometry to identify phenotypic changes in living cells, the partnership plans develop a new approach to high-content phenotypic screening.
“PhoreMost has embraced the revolution in computational methods to transform the way we approach modern drug discovery,” said Benedict Cross, PhD, CTO of PhoreMost. “By combining ThinkCyte’s AI-based platform to detect novel, disease-related phenotypes with our SITESEEKER phenotypic screening platform, we hope to more efficiently uncover a broad range of novel targets and translate them into high-quality first-in-class therapeutic assets.”
“We have been privileged to work with drug discovery industry partners who share our vision of using AI to rethink traditional approaches in R&D and look forward to working together with PhoreMost to advance our technologies towards the shared goal of making meaningful impact for people suffering from serious diseases,” added Waichiro Katsuda, CEO of ThinkCyte.”
