Disclosed herein are methods for identifying proteins as targets for interaction with a small molecule ligand. Also disclosed herein are small molecule ligands and compositions for use in profiling druggable proteins.

A composite material film for expanding circulating tumor cells ex vivo and a preparation method thereof, a kit and a method for expanding circulating tumor cells ex vivo, a method for detecting an effect of a drug, and a cryopreservation solution are provided. The preparation method includes: mixing one or more kinds of particles and a solvent to form a mixed liquid, in which the particles are selected from the group consisting of metal particles, metal oxide particles, silicon oxide particles and combinations thereof; placing the mixed liquid on a substrate to form a particle layer; adding a medium material to the particle layer, in which the medium material is selected from the group consisting of styrene and its derivatives, polyester monomers, silicon oxide compounds and combinations thereof; and polymerizing the medium material to form a medium layer to fix the particle layer on the substrate.

A method for screening secretion-producing cells is provided, in which a cell that produces a secretion of interest is subjected to screening from a plurality of cells. The method includes capturing the cell and at least one detection particle that is allowed to capture the secretion of interest in each of a plurality of wells having a bottom section with a through-hole sized such that the cell does not pass through, causing the cell captured in each of the plurality of wells to produce a secretion, detecting the secretion of interest captured by the at least one detection particle, and identifying, based on a result of the detection as an index, a well in which a cell producing the secretion of interest is captured from the plurality of wells. Each of the wells has a size allowing the cell to be captured in one cell unit in a state in which one or more detection particles are captured.

The present invention is primarily directed to provide a new process capable of performing direct conversion of or induction from a somatic cell to brown adipocytes with low molecular weight compounds, without performing artificial gene transfer.

The present invention includes, for example, a process for producing brown adipocytes by direct differentiation induction from somatic cells, comprising a step of culturing a somatic cell in a serum-free differentiation induction medium in the presence of a selective PPARγ agonist and a cAMP inducer.

According to the present invention, direct conversion of or induction from somatic cells to brown adipocytes can be effectively performed without gene transfer. The brown adipocytes obtained by the present invention are useful as regenerative medicine, models of human brown adipocytes and human beige cells, and the like.

This application provides a bead with a covalently attached chemical compound and a covalently attached DNA barcode and methods for using such beads. The bead has many substantially identical copies of the chemical compound and many substantially identical copies of the DNA barcode. The compound consists of one or more chemical monomers, where the DNA barcode takes the form of barcode modules, where each module corresponds to and allows identification of a corresponding chemical monomer. The nucleic acid barcode can have a concatenated structure or an orthogonal structure. Provided are method for sequencing the bead-bound nucleic acid barcode, for cleaving the compound from the bead, and for assessing biological activity of the released compound.

This application provides a bead with a covalently attached chemical compound and a covalently attached DNA barcode and methods for using such beads. The bead has many substantially identical copies of the chemical compound and many substantially identical copies of the DNA barcode. The compound consists of one or more chemical monomers, where the DNA barcode takes the form of barcode modules, where each module corresponds to and allows identification of a corresponding chemical monomer. The nucleic acid barcode can have a concatenated structure or an orthogonal structure. Provided are method for sequencing the bead-bound nucleic acid barcode, for cleaving the compound from the bead, and for assessing biological activity of the released compound.

Methods and compositions for detecting an antibiotic-inactivating factor produced by a microorganism are described herein.

Genetically encoded calcium indicator (GECI) polypeptides and the nucleic acid molecules encoding such polypeptides are provided. In addition, methods of using such nucleic acids and polypeptides in methods of screening for agonists or antagonists of G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) or ion channels and methods of monitoring neural activity also are provided.

The present disclosure provides a method of producing uniformly sized organoids/multicellular spheroids using a microfluidic device having an array of microwells. The method involves several successive steps. First, a microfluidic device containing parallel rows of microwells that are connected with a supplying channel is filled with a wetting agent. The wetting agent is a liquid that is immiscible in water. For example, the wetting agent may be an organic liquid such as oil. In the next step, the agent in the supplying channel and the microwells is replaced with a suspension of cells in an aqueous solution that contains a precursor for a hydrogel. Next, the aqueous phase in the supplying channel is replaced with the agent, which leads to the formation of an array of droplets of cell suspension in the hydrogel precursor solution, which were compartmentalized in the wells. The droplets are then transformed into cell-laden hydrogels. Subsequently, the agent in the supplying channel is replaced with the cell culture medium continuously flowing through the microfluidic device and the cells within the hydrogels are transformed into multicellular spheroids.

The present invention provides a method of identifying the strength of one or more unique regulatory elements (URE) having conformational effect on a transcribable reporter sequence.