BellBrook Labs Receives NIH Funding to Commercialize Methyltransferase Assays for Epigenetic Drug Discovery

BellBrook Labs has been awarded an $860,000 Phase II SBIR grant from the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences to develop an innovative methyltransferase assay for epigenetic drug discovery. The company’s scientists engineered a fluorescent light switch into a bacterial metabolite sensor to leap-frog the limitations of conventional reagents.

Madison, WI

The National Institutes of General Medical Sciences (NGMS) has awarded a Phase II $860,000 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant to BellBrook Labs, LLC for the commercialization of an innovative high-throughput screening (HTS) assay for histone methyltransferases. The AptaFluor™ Methyltransferase Assay overcomes the limitations of existing detection technologies by using a microbial sensor, or “riboswitch,” to transduce methyltransferase enzyme activity into a fluorescent signal.

The chemical modification of gene expression known as epigenetics has become a promising area for new drug discovery. Methyltransferases a

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