A company in County Durham is building a robotic system that can test thousands of potential drugs per week on tiny worms, replacing slower manual methods. This matters because most drugs that look promising in standard cell-based tests later fail in human trials, wasting years and billions of pounds. The nematode *C. elegans* shares key biological pathways with humans, including those involved in ageing and neurodegeneration, making it a better predictor of how a compound will actually work in the body. But current worm-based screening is too slow to handle the large compound libraries that pharmaceutical companies need to test. If successful, the new high-throughput platform—combining robotics, liquid culture, and machine learning—will let companies screen hundreds of thousands of compounds quickly and cheaply, without sacrificing data quality. This could reduce the number of drug candidates that fail in later, more expensive stages of development, and speed up the discovery of treatments for age-related diseases. The project also aims to create skilled jobs and strengthen the North East’s position in advanced drug discovery technology.
View original technical description
With a globally ageing population, there is an urgent need for drugs to treat or prevent chronic age-related diseases, making faster drug discovery critical. Increasing the number of compounds screened significantly enhances the chances of finding interventions to slow ageing or prevent such diseases. Magnitude Biosciences is a leading contract research organisation (CRO) based in Sedgefield, County Durham. It is the UK's sole organisation specialised in using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a model organism with significant physiological similarities to humans despite its short 2--3 week lifespan. For decades, researchers have used C. elegans to study human diseases and ageing processes. Its conserved neuronal signalling pathways make it particularly valuable for investigating neurodegenerative diseases. Magnitude Biosciences uses C. elegans to offer research services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, to evaluate compound efficacy and mechanisms of action. Traditional cellular assays often fail to predict safety and efficacy accurately, leading to high attrition rates in preclinical and clinical studies. Magnitude Biosciences' patented imaging technology, WormGazer, generates extensive healthspan data from C. elegans on agar plates in just 7 days, processing a petabyte of data weekly for tens of compounds. This method is faster, cheaper, and reduces reliance on rodent models. Client demand also calls for the ability to screen larger compound libraries at lower costs, even if it means sacrificing detailed functional endpoint data. To address this, Magnitude Biosciences industrial research project aims to use digital innovation to further develop our patented WormGazer technology into a high-throughput screening (HTS) platform capable of analyzing thousands of compounds weekly. By integrating advanced robotics, liquid culture design, and machine learning, the system will significantly enhance speed, scalability, and precision for early drug discovery and provide an additional revenue stream for the business. Key advancements include automating worm dispensing and plate handling with robotics to ensure precision, optimizing liquid culture plates for data quality, and employing machine learning to analyze vast datasets, extracting health and longevity metrics. These innovations will allow pharmaceutical companies to screen larger libraries efficiently, accelerating drug discovery and improving clinical trial success rates. This project not only advances drug discovery but also fosters growth for Magnitude Biosciences, creates high-skilled jobs, and strengthens the North East as a global hub for advanced drug discovery and digital technology innovation.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know