Emerging Technology

Key capabilities

Label-Free, Real-Time Screening of Aptamer Kinetics:

Gator^® BLI enables accurate k_on, k_off, and K_D measurements without radiolabels or high sample consumption, making it the ideal tool for high-throughput aptamer discovery.

Re-Usable Streptavidin Sensors Reduce Non-Specific Binding:

Gator’s nucleotide-free, low-NSB Flex SA biosensors allow consistent performance across many targets, saving time and cost while maintaining screening precision.

Scalable Platform for Therapeutics, Diagnostics & Synthetic Biology:

Gator BLI simplifies aptamer validation workflows, making it easier to screen hundreds of candidates for use in next-gen diagnostics and delivery platforms.

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Nucleic acid-based binders are a growing field in diagnostics, therapeutics, and targeted delivery systems. Aptamers are short strands of DNA or RNA that fold into specific 3D structures and which grant antibody-like binding. Being based on a nucleotide scaffold presents numerous advantages, including stability, ease of synthesis, and tailored dynamic range. Screening these molecules for binding specificity, affinity, and off-target interactions is the first step in the process, and you need accurate, fast results in order to pick the correct candidate. As the synthetic biology and binder characterization fields expand, scientists are looking for a flexible way to validate binding to a wide variety of aptamer-target interactions. 

Screening aptamer candidates remains labor-intensive and time-consuming in many labs. Traditional techniques often require high sample volumes, radiolabeling, long assay times focused on k_off without emphasis on k_on, leading to less-than-ideal candidates for diagnostics development. 

Gator’s bio-layer interferometry (BLI) platform streamlines aptamer screening by enabling label-free, real-time binding analysis with minimal target consumption. Gator’s cutting-edge, nucleotide-free, re-usable streptavidin sensors (Flex SA) are also a critical tool for aptamer screening, reducing non-specific binding (NSB) without needing fresh sensors each time. With Gator BLI, you can confidently measure binding kinetics, such as association (k_on) and dissociation (k_off) rates across hundreds of aptamer candidates in a single screen. With plug-and-play biosensors and intuitive software, Gator Bio has helped dozens of customers convert high-throughput aptamer screening into a more accessible, efficient, and scalable process.

Key capabilities

Accelerate Functional Screening in Cell-Free Workflows:

Gator BLI delivers real-time, label-free kinetic analysis directly from crude cell-free expression lysates, ideal for high-throughput workflows from ML or directed evolution.

Maximize Insight with Minimal Sample:

Designed for small-volume, high-cost samples, Gator BLI enables rapid assessment of expression quality, affinity, and stability without purification.

Compatible Probes for Versatile Validation:

Gator’s Strep-tactin XT and VHH biosensors make it easy to validate and screen newly expressed proteins, accelerating discovery and reducing turnaround time.

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Cell-free expression is the method of choice for rapidly creating proteins from today’s high-throughput methods like machine learning algorithms, directed evolution, and library screening. Cell free expression allows you to create hundreds of different proteins at the same time, allowing you to perform functional assays without the time-consuming constraints of cellular expression. Cell-free expression allows researchers to observe protein-protein interactions, enzyme kinetics, and binding dynamics more quickly than ever before.

Cell-free expression allows researchers to create any protein or peptide they want in a matter of minutes, but that comes at a price – the tradeoff is small volume and high cost. When costs are high, evaluating expression quality, functionality, and binding properties of the proteins produced through these cell-free systems is a top priority, and many techniques aren’t up to the task. Often, these tools are low-throughput, require purification steps, or fail to deliver real-time kinetic data.

Gator Bio’s bio-layer interferometry (BLI) platform allows you to obtain real-time, label-free measurements as part of cell-free expression workflows. Take advantage of Gator’s Strep-Tactin XT or VHH probes to validate expression and measure their binding interactions directly from crude lysates. With Gator BLI, researchers gain immediate insight into the affinity, specificity, and stability of expressed proteins, empowering faster iteration and decision-making in both research and preclinical applications.

Key capabilities

Solve Lipid-Based Binding Challenges:

Gator BLI’s proprietary biosensors (SA XT, Anti-PEG, Anti-VHH, Strep-Tactin) and detection algorithms reduce the incidence of signal inversion and avidity artifacts common in LNP/VLP studies by allowing you to immobilize the lipoparticle first.

Measure What Matters in Delivery Systems:

Quantify binding kinetics, surface protein interactions, and vesicle stability with confidence. Gator BLI enables deep characterization of mRNA LNPs, VLPs, and EVs.

Empower Next-Gen Therapeutics:

Whether you’re developing mRNA vaccines, gene therapies, or CAR-T delivery vectors, Gator Bio BLI offers the clarity, throughput, and reliability needed for cutting-edge delivery system optimization.

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Lipid nanoparticles (LNP) and virus-like particles (VLP) are just hitting their stride in the therapeutic space. Characterizing their surface chemistries and composition is critical to the development of mRNA vaccines, gene therapies, CAR-T therapies, and personalized medicines. Understanding the size, morphology, stability, and population of transmembrane or anchored surface proteins of LNPs and VLPs is essential for ensuring that these delivery systems can effectively encapsulate their payloads and target specific tissues or cells. In addition to traditional VLP applications, Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) are also a growing research topic, and their surface proteins and roles remain an open question in cellular biology.

Characterizing LNPs and VLPs can be challenging due to their complex optical nature and multivalent binding sites. Due to their low refractive index, it can be difficult to assess analyte binding after loading VLPs or similar lipoparticles as ligand on the sensor surface because these interactions often cause a signal inversion and/or inflected signals (starting one direction then changing direction). These distortions make it hard to draw reliable conclusions about particle behavior for what should be a simple interaction. Meanwhile, LNPs are far from consistent in their surface population, and having multiple copies of the same target within a short distance from one another means they can double-bind and cause avidity, making an interaction appear much stronger than it is in an in vivo system.

Gator Bio’s bio-layer interferometry (BLI) technology addresses these challenges by offering a unique set of biosensors specifically designed for LNP and VLP characterization. Gator Bio’s proprietary detection algorithms combined with the specialized optical coating on our innovative SA XT, Anti-PEG, Anti-VHH, and Strep-Tactin probes limit the incidence of this signal inversion. Where before, these assays were simply impossible, these biosensors enable accurate, real-time measurements of interactions without the interference that typically occurs with lipid-based systems. Precisely measure binding kinetics, affinity, and stability of LNPs and VLPs, characterize extracellular vesicles, and optimize formulation to ensure your targeted delivery system functions properly in an LNP system. Whether developing mRNA vaccines or gene therapies, Gator Bio’s specialized biosensors are at your side, pioneering the next generation of therapeutics. 

Key capabilities

Label-Free Screening at Scale:

Gator Bio’s BLI platform enables rapid, real-time, label-free binding analysis of small molecules and peptides, even at low affinities (KD as high as 1 mM) without the need for radiolabeling, fluorescence tags, or complex setup.

Accelerate Hit-to-Lead Conversion:

Gator’s high-throughput format and crude-sample tolerance make it ideal for early-phase drug discovery.

Small Peptides, Big Impact:

Whether you’re working in pharmaceutical R&D, biotech, or academic drug discovery, Gator Bio gives you the speed, precision, and scalability to turn hits into validated therapeutic leads.

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Many companies that specialize in small molecule and peptide therapeutics have massive libraries or potential variants, each carrying small variations that can have a dramatic impact on compound efficacy, binding affinity, and selectivity. Often, biological readouts are a simple yes/no, but don’t give you the kind of information you need to develop drug candidates that bind to specific protein targets, enzymes, or receptors. High-quality screening results are crucial for evaluation, and they are essential for advancing hit compounds into more detailed preclinical studies. For researchers in pharmaceutical development, biotechnology, or academic drug discovery, efficient and accurate screening methods are the missing link between a hit and a candidate.

Traditional approaches, such as radiolabeled assays or fluorescence-based detection require labeling the candidate molecule, which is often infeasible when working at scale. Meanwhile, other assays like SPR require onerous setup and expert maintenance to produce reliable data. These challenges can hinder the ability to assess binding kinetics, selectivity, and off-target effects in a timely and cost-effective manner, slowing down the discovery of promising compounds.

Gator Bio’s bio-layer interferometry (BLI) technology revolutionizes small molecule and peptide screening by providing a label-free, real-time solution to measure binding interactions with high sensitivity. With the ability to detect even low-affinity binding events (with K_Ds as high as 1 mM), Gator BLI allows for the evaluation of kinetic parameters such as association and dissociation rates, providing a deeper understanding of how molecules interact with their targets. This high-throughput capability and broad sample tolerance allows researchers to rapidly screen large libraries of small molecules and peptides, identify promising leads, and evaluate their binding dynamics without the need for complex sample preparation or labeling. Gator Bio’s platform accelerates drug discovery workflows, enabling faster identification of effective compounds for faster therapeutic design.