A Comprehensive Virology and Viral Vector Platform

From in vitro assays setup to clinical trial support

WuXi Biology provides a comprehensive infectious disease and virology platform with integrated drug discovery services from assay design and setup, to clinical trial support. Our infectious disease team provides world class services to accelerate your drug discovery program from target validation to preclinical candidate selection and beyond.


Antiviral Services

From Assay Setup to Clinical Trial Support

  • Drug combination
  • Serum shift
  • Genotypic spectrum
  • Pan-virus panel
  • Cross resistance
  • De novo selection of drug-resistant virus
  • In vivo and ex vivo efficacy
  • Customer designed studies
  • IND package

In Vitro Research Platforms

  • Antiviral services: Cell-based and biochemical assays for HBV, RSV, influenza, HPIV, HIV, HSV, HCMV, ZIKA, HRV, EV71, CV and HCV for compound screening and profiling, resistance characterization, HTS and MOA studies
  • Support to clinical trials: Genotyping, VL determination, sequencing and phenotyping for HCV and HBV clinical trials; genotyping for RSV clinical trial

In Vivo Models

  • Hydrodynamic injection (HDI), AAV/HBV and humanized FRG mouse models for HBV
  • Mouse and cotton rat pulmonary infection models for RSV, mouse lethal model for influenza virus, mouse lethal model for HSV and EV71, mouse xenograft model for HCMV
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV)
  • Compound screening
    • HBV producing cell lines
    • Reporter cell lines
    • Biochemistry
  • Compound profiling
  • Ex vivo primary human hepatocytes (PHH) infectious system
  • In vivo models
  • HBV related immunological assays
  • Support of clinical trials
  • MOA studies:
    • CpAM
    • Tailored MOA studies

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Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)
  • Compound screening: stable and transient replicons, and HCVcc with luciferase reporter and RT-qPCR
  • Compound profiling: drug resistance, genotypic spectrum, drug combination and serum shift
  • Support to clinical trials: VL, genotyping and phenotyping
  • Biochemistry: viral enzymes
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV)
  • Compound screening: RSV A and B lab and clinical strains with CPE, ELISA, neutralization and plaque reduction assays
  • Compound profiling: drug resistance, genotypic spectrum and drug combination
  • In vivo model: mouse or cotton rat pulmonary infection models with VL plaque assay
  • Support of clinical trials: VL, genotyping
  • MOA: F protein-mediated cell fusion
Influenza Virus (IFV)
  • Compound screening/profiling
    • Panel of IFV A H1N1, H3N2, and IFV B strains with CPE, plaque and RT-qPCR
    • Highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 and H7N9 strains
    • Drug resistance, drug combination
  • In vivo model: mouse pulmonary infection with mortality and VL titration
  • Biochemistry: neuraminidase, hemagglutinin
  • Viral protein and replication complex purification from infected hen eggs
Picornaviruses
  • Human rhinovirus (HRV): mini panel of HRV strains, CPE assay
  • Enterovirus 71 (EV71, hand-foot-mouth disease): CPE, mouse lethal and VL RT-qPCR model
  • Coxsackie virus (CV): A16 and B3, CPE assay
Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV)
  • Compound screening/profiling: HSV-1 and HSV-2, CPE and reporter assays
  • In vivo model: mouse lethal and ocular latent infection/activation models
  • Ex vivo model: isolation and cultivation of latently infected ganglia neurons
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
  • HIV-1 IIIB or BaL, MT-4 cell-based CPE assay
  • HIV-1 pseudovirus reporter assay
  • Reference: AZT (Retrovir), TDF (Viread), RAL (Raltegravir) and DTG (Dolutegravir)
Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV)
Human Parainfluenza Virus (HPIV)
  • HPIV-3 CPE assay

Zika Virus
  • Compound screening: CPE and plaque reduction assay
  • In vivo model: mouse lethal model with VL RT-qPCR

Liver-Specific Viruses

WuXi Biology offers a broad assay platform for the discovery of agents for the treatment of liver-specific viruses infection, including services for assay establishment and validation, compound screening and characterization, and support of preclinical studies and clinical trials.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) Platform

Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is a severe public health burden and an unmet medical need. Current standard therapies, interferon-α and nucleot(s)ides, cannot eliminate HBV. Recently, various novel targets and approaches are being explored towards the cure of CHB.  The Biology HBV team at WuXi AppTec, led by a group of experienced scientists with in-depth knowledge in anti-HBV drug discovery, has established and been providing an open access and full-range integrated HBV platform to our clients, including biochemical and cell-based assays, ex vivo PHH systems, animal models and clinical virology assays. Our HBV team is your ideal partner for discovery and development of novel anti-HBV agents.

In Vitro Assays

  • HBV stable cell lines : HepG2.2.15, DE19 and DES19
    •     HBV DNA, cccDNA
    •     HBV antigens
    •     HBV RNAs
    •     Encapsidated RNA and DNA
    •     Capsid content
  • HBV DNA constructs with transient transfection assay
  • Clinical isolates/genotype A to J (~5 strains for each genotype)
  • Nucleot(s)ide and capsid inhibitor resistant mutants
  • Phenotyping with shuttle vectors and mutant constructs
    •     Fitness
    •     Drug sensitivity
  • HepG2-NTCP cell/HBV infectious system
  • Reporter cell lines (hTLR, THP1-Blue ISG, TNF-induced NF-κB-luciferase, and IFN-α/β induction SEAP)
  • Production of HBV from HBV stable cell lines
  • Recombinant core protein expression and purification, and capsid quenching assay
  • MOA studies

Ex Vivo Primary Human Hepatocytes (PHH)

  • Fresh isolated and cryopreserved PHH
  • In vitro HBV infection
  • In vivo HBV infection

HBV Animal Models

  • Hydrodynamic injection (HDI) mouse model
  • AAV/HBV mouse model
  • Humanized FRG mouse model
  • Transgenic mouse model
  • WHV/woodchuck model

Clinical Virology (CAP lab)

  • Viral Load (Cobas)
  • Sequencing: Pol, core, full-length sequencing, sanger (clone and population), deep sequencing
  • Genotyping by INNO-LiPA
  • Phenotyping
  • HBV emerging markers: serum HBV RNA, HBcrAg
  • Cytokines by ELISA, Luminex and MSD
  • IFN and ISG mRNA by ELISA and RT-qPCR
  • Immune markers by IHC, IF and Western blot
  • Splenocytes, lymphocytes from organs and PBMC by FACS, ICS and ELISPOT 

Hepatitis C virus (HCV)

In Vitro Assays

  • Drug Screening: stable and transient replicons, and HCVcc with different endpoints
  • Profiling
    • Drug resistance: cross resistance, denovo resistance selection
    • Genotypic spectrum
    • Drug combination
    • Serum shift
    • Colony formation
  • Biochemistry: viral enzymes

Clinical Virology (CAP lab)

  • Viral Load (Cobas)
  • Genotyping
  • Phenotyping (chimera, SDM, fitness,drug susceptibility)

Hepatitis D virus (HDV)

  • Cell-based infectious assay

Virology Assays Supporting Human Clinical Trials

Clinical Sample Testing

  • HCV
  • HBV
  • RSV

Automated Sample Preparation, Amplification, and Quantitation

  • HCV RNA viral load
  • HBV DNA viral load

Genotyping

  • Taqman SNP and CNV assay
  • Sanger sequencing
  • SNPshot
  • MSI

Gene Expression Studies

  • Fresh tissues
  • Whole blood
  • FFPE

Protein Based Vaccines
mRNA Vaccines
Adenovirus Vaccines