BPS2026 Program Book

Esplanade Room 157: Tuesday, February 24 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Sophion Bioscience Expanding the Reach of Automated Patch Clamp: From Com putational Design to Organellar and Natural Product Ion Chan nel Assays Automated patch clamp (APC) technology has transformed ion channel research by enabling high-throughput, high fidelity electrophysiological recordings that were once limited to manual approaches. Sophion Bioscience, a leader in APC instrumentation, continues to push the boundaries of what can be measured; from complex primary cell assays to challenging organellar and transporter recordings. This exhibitor-hosted event highlights recent advances and diverse applications of APC across academic and translational research. Dr. Hai Minh Nguyen (UC Davis) will discuss how computational peptide design and APC-based functional validation can accelerate the development of selective ion channel modulators. Dr. Daniel Sauter (Sophion Bioscience) will present new APC workflows optimized for recording small current amplitudes such as single channels and transporters. Dr. Rian Manville (UC Irvine) will demonstrate how APC enables systematic screening and characterization of plant derived compounds with ion channel activity. Together, the speakers will illustrate how innovations in automated patch clamp technology are driving new directions in ion channel discovery, from molecular design and assay development to translational applications. Speakers Rian Manville, Assistant Project Scientist, University of California, Irvine Hai Nguyen, Associate Project Scientist, University of California, Davis Daniel Sauter, Application Science Manager, Sophion Bioscience

understanding of how Avanti Research contributes to the advancement of lipid science—not only through high-quality products, but through a commitment to scientific partnership. From individual investigators building model systems to global consortia mapping the lipidome, we stand ready to support the research that drives discovery. Join us to see how Avanti Research™ continues to fuel innovation in lipid science—one discovery, one collaboration, and one high-purity lipid at a time. Speaker Kyle Black, Business Manager, Avanti Research 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Nuclera Cell-Free Protein Synthesis to Unlock Difficult Soluble and Membrane Targets Recombinant protein production remains a major rate-limiting step in modern drug discovery. Biophysical and structural methods, from SPR and HDX-MS to cryo-EM and X-ray crystallography, routinely stall, because sufficient quantities of properly folded, functional protein are unavailable. These bottlenecks slow hit validation, mechanism-of-action studies, and structure-enabled optimisation across both soluble and membrane targets. Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) offers a different paradigm. By decoupling expression from cell growth, and viability, CFPS enables rapid, iterative design make-test cycles, direct control over reaction conditions, and straightforward incorporation of non-standard components such as chaperones, ligands, cofactors, and membrane mimetics. In this talk, we introduce eProtein Discovery™™, an integrated CFPS-based system that combines sequence design and automated digital microfluidics-based multiplex protein screening to rapidly identify expression-ready, assay-ready protein conditions. We will first illustrate how the platform accelerates soluble protein production, highlighting case studies where parallel screening of constructs, tags, redox conditions, and other additives yields functional material suitable for biophysical and structural workflows in days rather than weeks. We then extend this approach to membrane proteins, focusing on the additional challenge of providing the right lipid environment. We will discuss co-translational insertion into nanodiscs, the impact of different membrane scaffold protein (MSP) sizes, and how lipid composition tunes stability and function. Case studies on transporters, membrane bound enzymes, and GPCRs will show how eProtein Discovery systematically screens constructs, MSP variants, lipids, and additives to pinpoint conditions that produce active receptors and enzymes for downstream assays. Together, these examples demonstrate how CFPS can make a broad range of traditionally difficult proteins accessible for drug discovery, transforming protein production from a bottleneck into a programmable, front-end design space. Speaker Kristin Mars, Key Account Manager (West Coast) in BD and Sales, Nuclera

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