INDIGO Blog

View our most recent posts to learn more about various types of receptors, cell-based assays, and their use in drug discovery and environmental testing applications. 

 

Agonist, Antagonist, and Inverse Agonist Activity: What Drug Discovery Teams Need from Receptor Assays

In receptor-focused drug discovery, teams need to understand what a compound does after it engages the receptor. Does it activate signaling? Inhibit ligand-induced activity? Reduce baseline pathway activity? These distinctions shape hit selection, lead optimization, selectivity profiling, and downstream development strategy.This is why drug discovery teams often rely on functional cell-based receptor assays that measure…

Cell-Based Bioassays for Food Packaging Safety: PFAS, Microplastics, and Chemical Leachates

Food packaging is under more scrutiny than ever. Consumers, regulators, food brands, and packaging manufacturers are all asking the same questions: What is migrating from packaging into food? What are people being exposed to? And perhaps most importantly, how do those exposures affect health? Two topics dominate that conversation: PFAS and microplastics. PFAS, often referred…

Best Practices for Reporter Assay Method Transfer in CRO Workflows

Contract Research Organizations (CROs) are often asked to do more than simply run assays. They are expected to reproduce client methods, maintain data continuity across teams and sites, meet aggressive timelines, and support programs that may move quickly from exploratory screening to regulated or decision-driving studies. In that environment, assay transfer, sometimes referred to as…

Bradykinin Receptors B1R and B2R in Disease Research and Drug Discovery

Bradykinin receptors B1R and B2R are G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that play roles in inflammation, vascular biology, pain signaling, and tissue injury responses. As key components of the kallikrein-kinin system, the Bradykinin receptors translate bradykinin-family peptide activity into cellular responses that influence vascular permeability, smooth muscle tone, immune cell activation, and nociception. Their distinct expression…

Characterizing PFAS Compounds Using Human Cell-Based Bioassays

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are no longer viewed as a small set of well-known legacy contaminants. They represent a large, structurally diverse chemical class that includes long- and short-chain compounds, replacement chemistries, precursors, degradation products, and complex environmental mixtures.For researchers characterizing PFAS compounds, the challenge is no longer simply determining whether a compound is…