AN IN VITRO ROBOTIC ASSAY FOR ESTROGENIC ACTIVITY

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent scientific investigations have shown that many chemicals used in plastics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, cosmetics, food additives, etc., are endocrine disruptors that interfere in various ways with the action of estrogen, androgen, or thyroid hormones. The most common endocrine effects of disruptor involve estrogenic activity that can have significant deleterious effects on many physiological processes at very low (picomolar to nanomolar) concentrations, especially on fetal or developing mammals. The prevalence and actions of endocrine disruptors in our environment warrants the development of highly specific, sensitive, reliable, rapid, and cost-effective detection. A high throughput robotic cell proliferation assay would constitute such a test. Hence, in this SBIR Phase I proposal, CertiChem proposes to develop a high throughput robotic assay to detect estrogenic activity by measuring in vitro proliferation of MCF-7 cells. Such a robotic screening assay should be commercially important because of the large number of chemicals (> 10,000) and mixtures of chemicals that should be screened for estrogenic activity by profit, non-profit, or governmental entities. Our preliminary data demonstrate that CertiChem has the expertise to develop this in vitro robotic assay for estrogenic activity. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: NOT AVAILABLE