Dotmatics Launches Bioregister 2020.1

Dotmatics, a UK-based scientific informatics software and services company specializing in the automation of laboratory data workflows, has launched Bioregister 2020.1, the latest version of its web-based application used for registering sequence-based, chemically modified, and structure-less biological entities. The enhanced application will support researchers who are developing chemically modified therapeutics for drug discovery, the company announced in an Aug. 26, 2020 press release.

The update app allows users to define entities with full chemical representation and use that chemical representation for uniqueness checking during registration. Bioregister 2020.1 also supports implicit creation of click chemistry bioconjugation reactions, which allows for the streamlining of the definition and registration of conjugated antibodies and peptides.

There is a growing trend of diversity in therapeutic-entity types in the drug discovery industry, Dotmatics noted in its press release. This increasing diversity is the result of the work of cross-functional research teams. The diverse therapeutic-entity types include a range of novel, non-natural biomolecules specifically designed to access disease target locations and binding sites that are challenging for traditional small-molecule or natural biologic approaches. This field of drug discovery has been rapidly emerging but has been previously hindered by inadequate informatics systems, which have prevented the correct storing of drug discovery candidates that possess both chemical and biological properties. Bioregister 2020.1 addresses many of these limiting factors, according to Dotmatics.

“Click chemistry” enables first-time users of Bioregister to implicitly create specific peptide-drug and antibody-drug conjugates based on defined chemical interactions. Using information that has been stored within pre-existing corporate databases, the new “click chemistry” feature boosts workflow efficiency and has the potential to reduce error-introducing risks. Researchers will additionally be able to create new entities with full chemical representation. This detail will allow for accurate chemical-structure uniqueness checking and will provide more robust intellectual property (IP) protection than is currently possible using labels and shorthand notations. Having this reassurance becomes increasingly important because a greater number of non-natural molecules are expected to be used in the industry, and there is currently a lack of standardization for the definition of these molecules compared to what is available for natural molecules.

As the prevalence of chemically modified therapeutics increases, it will become a more common workflow to edit existing entities to create child entities with modifications intended to enhance therapeutic potential. Bioregister 2020.1 supports the Hierarchical Editing Language for Macromolecules (HELM) standard for notation and sharing of macromolecular entities. This expands the application’s integration with the Pistoia Alliance HELM Web Editor (open access) by automatically creating sequence relationships for edited existing entities, which can provide researchers with an understanding of the evolution of entities during the drug discovery process.

“We’re committed to delivering enhanced software capabilities to our global customer base, driven by the latest user requirements. We believe that full chemical uniqueness checking is the premier method for registering biomolecules, including chemically modified therapeutics, ensuring the most robust IP protection possible. The introduction of Bioregister 2020.1 cements our position as a leading provider of an enterprise-scale informatics solution that supports the research and discovery of chemically-modified therapeutics,” said Stephen Gallagher, co-founder and CEO, Dotmatics, in the press release.

Source: Dotmatics