Hera BioLabs

Lexington,  KY 
United States

• Booth: 1103

Improved models & screening services through gene editing

Hera is a CRO focused on utilizing gene editing to develop more predictive and high throughput in vitro and in vivo models, requiring less reliance on traditional animal models. Hera is working to develop better in vitro models of neurotoxicity, hepatotoxicity and off target hormonal effects with high throughput reporter cell lines.  On the in vivo side, Hera is developing humanized liver and immune system rat models for hepatotoxicity, cancer xenograft, DDI, and immunogenicity testing.   

 Press Releases

• Hera to present at the 2015 American College of Toxicology “GFP+ HUMAN STEM CELL DERIVED NEURONS AMENABLE TO HIGH CONTENT NEURITE OUTGROWTH AND HIGH THROUGHPUT TOXICOLOGY ASSAYS” (Jan 11, 2016)

  High throughput (HTS) and high content screening (HCS) assays often utilize cell sources, which are not amenable to large-scale screening and can require extensive cell culture and processing prior to imaging. To overcome this hurdle, Hera and a commercial partner ArunA Biomedical, engineered human neural progenitors derived from stem cells with a non-viral vector encoding a GFP reporter gene using a selectable piggyBac™ gene editing system to produce hNP1 GFP+ cells. hNP1 reporter cells exhibit detectable dose dependent response to toxins tested, (cytotoxicity and cell migration) providing a sensitive, high throughput and high content amenable, cell based human neurotox assay platform.