Industry News: Recipient of ACEA Research Travel Award Announced

ACEA Biosciences would like to congratulate James Murray, a doctoral student under Dr. James Murphy in the Mitochondrial Biology & Radiation Research Centre at the Institute of Technology Sligo (Ireland), for winning the ACEA Research Travel Award for Fall 2015.

James Murray is awarded for his research on novel anticancer drug hybrids, wherein two chemotherapeutic compounds are covalently tethered to one another to form a single molecule with two different modes of action.  Citing that the 20% oxygen atmosphere that human cells are typically cultured in does not reflect in vivo oxygen concentrations of 3-5%, or the hypoxic environment of tumors (~1%), Murray used the xCELLigence^® RTCA DP system to evaluate the effect of drug hybrids on tumor and non-tumor cell lines under hypoxic conditions.  ACEA’s impedance-based label-free xCELLigence RTCA assay was chosen over alternative viability assays such as MTT (which monitors mitochondrial activity) due to the effect that varying oxygen concentration can have on cellular metabolism.  RTCA detected not only drug-induced changes in cell number but also the kinetics of drug action.  Murray commented that “RTCA was invaluable in defining optimal seeding densities and drug concentration range and enabled us to detect instances of cell recovery which may otherwise have been overlooked”.  He will be presenting this work, entitled “Selective anticancer activity of novel endoperoxide-naphthalimide hybrid compounds in vitro”, at the Irish Association for Cancer Research Annual meeting (IACR) in Ireland, February 25-26, 2016.  His latest publication can be viewed here: “In vitro oxygen availability modulates the effect of artesunate on HeLa cells” (Anticancer Res. 2014 Dec;34(12):7055-60).

About ACEA Biosciences

Founded in 2002, ACEA Biosciences, Inc. (ACEA) is a pioneer in the development and commercialization of high performance, cutting edge cell analysis platforms for life science research.  ACEA’s xCELLigence® impedance-based, label-free, real-time cell analysis systems and NovoCyte™ benchtop flow cytometers are used in preclinical drug discovery and development, toxicology, safety pharmacology, disease studies, and basic academic research.  Further information is available at:  http://www.aceabio.com