SARomics Biostructures focuses on accelerating our clients’ drug discovery projects by applying structural biology methods. Our comprehensive integrated structural biology services support the entire drug development process, including contract protein crystallization & structure determination, fragment screening, hit identification, and structure-based lead generation and optimization. For a pharma client, outsourcing structure determination and crystallographic fragment screening to a CRO with highly experienced staff and access to modern laboratories for protein expression, purification, crystallization, synchrotron data collection, and X-ray fragment screening facilities, with a typical project turnaround of 3 to 8 weeks, provides considerable advantages in project acceleration. However, we also need to remember that X-ray crystallography requires crystals, and not every target crystallizes easily. For large, flexible, or membrane-associated assemblies, cryo-EM becomes the better tool. For smaller proteins under roughly 50 kDa where solution-state dynamics matter, NMR may add information that crystallography cannot always deliver. As a structural biology CRO, we can match the technique to the biology rather than forcing the biology to fit one available method. We choose the technique that matches your target’s behavior and consider running more than one when the target requires it.
