Portfolio

Brazilian Biodiversity Molecular Powerhouse

 

This platform discovers and optimizes natural products from the Brazilian biodiversity with application in new drugs, herbal medicines, cosmetics, and functional foods.

Brazil houses the world’s largest vegetable biodiversity with about 55,000 angiosperms among the 250,000 known. This enormous biodiversity is a potential source of many products. The project created a natural products library from the Brazilian vegetable biodiversity in partnership with the company Phytobios. In compliance with all Brazilian regulations, Phytobios collects samples in the biomes: Amazonian, Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, and Caatinga.  LNBio that is responsible for processing and testing as well as for the collection custody and management.

The platform currently runs two projects on drug discovery in partnership with ACHÉ Laboratórios, a Brazilian Pharmaceutical Company. One aims at discovering a new drug anticancer and the other new dermocosmetic antiaging. Both already completed the library screening and are prioritizing the hits.

 

Brazil Mab

 

This is a platform for developing biological products both innovative and biosimilar, especially monoclonal antibodies. Our capabilities include the proposal of the CDR by bioinformatics, construction of the expression vector, transfection, cloning and selection, development of monoclonal cell line, and de production of the Research Cell Bank. All processes occur in clean rooms, under strict quality control.

The platform currently runs a project on a monoclonal antibody biosimilar to progress until the research cell bank and to be transferred to a Brazilian biopharma.

 

Microphysiological Systems

 

Preclinical tests are expensive, time-consuming and do not prevent up to 90% of drugs fail in clinical trials. There is an urgent need for developing better preclinical tests, executable in a shorter time, at a lower cost. The most promising technology is the Microphysiological Systems that cultivate organoids with three-dimensional architecture and nutrient media circulation, promoting physiological perfusion and inter organoids communication. Organoids made of human cells increase translational relevance. Most common cell sources are primary, cell lines, biopsies or induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC).

The CNPEM’s labs LNBio and LNNano are prototyping a microfluidic device aiming at ADMETox initial evaluations of drugs (small molecules) under development. It has an innovative design (patent pending) and cultivates intestine, liver, and kidney. LNBio is also producing and characterizing all organoids mentioned.