“I’m focused on continuous improvement of therapeutic strategies and to translate these into solutions for patients suffering from lung diseases,” tells Dr. Astrid Weiß, post doc. at the Biomedical Research Center Seltersberg of the Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen, Germany and scientist at the German Center for Lung Research. “Our in-house PamStation provides me and my colleagues with the molecular mechanisms and pathway insights needed to improve our analysis and to publish our findings.” In 2019, Dr. Weiß published her work on the role of kinases as potential targets for treatment of pulmonary hypertension and right ventricular dysfunction in Nature Communications.
Kinases as potential targets for treatment
Heart and lung diseases are the leading causes of death and represent the highest socio-economic burden of all diseases worldwide. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a progressive disease of multifactorial etiology with poor prognosis, which affects up to 100 million people worldwide in its various subtypes. Dr. Weiß is dedicated to pursue an integrated concept to understand the common pathophysiological processes and molecular mechanisms that underlie structural pulmonary vascular abnormalities as well as right ventricle adaptation and maladaptation in pulmonary hypertension.
In 2019, Dr. Weiß published her research findings in Nature Communications. “Using PamGene’s technology I was able to define the phenotype of PH patient cells. It also allowed me to make in-vivo comparisons with, in this case, the phenotype of inhibitor treated cells. Through this comparison of alterations in phenotypes, I gained a full insight in the different activated pathways and mechanistic behavior of the cells. This enabled me to draw conclusions about the predicted effect of the tested inhibitor on taking away the risk of heart failure that is the main cause of death of PH patients. Without treatment, the median survival is 2.8 years, with survival rates of 68%, 48%, and 34% at 1, 3, and 5 years, respectively.”
Collaborate with other Departments
Since 2015, a PamStation is part of the Biomedical Research Center Seltersberg lab facilities. This enables scientists to search in-house for new insights and a better understanding of their studies’ cell behavior by performing real-time kinase activity measurements.
“We were looking for an additional in-house technology that would support us in improving our analysis of pathway signaling. PamGene’s unique technology, measuring all kinases and their activity in a lysate, has proven to be the best fit for this. It provides a full mechanistic insight and it is possible to combine with additional data-sets. Our hypothesis analyses have been improved and the PamStation provides us with data sets that add enormous value to ongoing research projects and collaborations which ultimately can be published in well-known scientific journals.”
“Having an in-house PamStation and promoting its possibilities and benefits made me to collaborate with several colleagues from other departments. With the right focus it is easy to work with the PamStation and thanks to the support of PamGene’s experts we are able to analyze and interpret the data in a way it becomes applicable to our studies and contributes to reaching our organization’s objectives.”
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