Enthusiasm for Nobel Prize in Medicine

Dirk, why were you particularly pleased about this Nobel Prize award?

Dirk Sombroek: First of all, I would like to congratulate both laureates – David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian – on their great research work and the well-deserved award of the Nobel Prize. Both have impressively shown how relevant research in the field of ion channels is. I was particularly pleased that this prize was awarded to David Julius because we at BRAIN have been successfully using the receptors honored, the "Transient Receptor Potential" or TRP ion channels for short, in our applied research for over ten years. In fact, measuring the modulation of TRP ion channels forms the basis for many of our cell-based assays. We use these assays to test large substance libraries for our industrial customers in screening campaigns – for example, natural products from our subsidiary AnalytiCon Discovery.

What follows such screening?

Newly identified, promising candidates are characterized with regard to their active properties. After detailed assessment and, if necessary, toxicological evaluation, we can then validate selected substances in application in initial "proof-of-concept" studies for customers. This approach enables our industrial partners to develop new active ingredients for a wide range of applications.

What are the benefits of TRP-based assays for customers?

Customers from industry are looking for natural, bioactive ingredients for food, feed or cosmetics. We find these for them in our substance libraries. Customers not only benefit from our many years of experience in the field of ion channels; they also benefit from our ready-to-use test systems as well as from the proprietary screening libraries of the BRAIN Group. These include, for example, Nagoya-compliant natural products or extracts and fractions from edible plants.

Are there typical fields of application? Can you give us a specific example?

Due to the diverse functions of TRP ion channels, the fields of application are diverse. Particularly in demand are new flavors and/or taste modulators for the food industry, food supplements, new active ingredients for the cosmetics industry, cooling compounds for oral care, and much more.

Together with the Symrise company from Holzminden, Germany, we succeeded in identifying an inhibitor of the receptor TRPV1. Since the Nobel Prize was awarded, among other things, for the characterization of precisely this receptor, our enthusiasm for this prize award can certainly be understood. The identified TRPV1 inhibitor can be used to soothe sensitive skin. Currently, this active ingredient is used, for example, in the "Ultra sensitive" range from Eucerin (Beiersdorf).

If you have already developed such successful test systems, why are you continuing to research the topic?

TRP ion channels are polymodal sensors, i.e. they respond to various stimuli physical as well as chemical, from peptides to small bioactive molecules. So they naturally have multiple biological functions, not only in humans. And that continues to make them an exciting object of research.

Moreover, the test systems themselves are only a first step for us. In order to make the research results usable for our partners and ultimately tangible for consumers in other words, to transfer them into products we are interested in new active substances or ion channel modulators. Identifying these, validating them and making them available for commercial use is just as much a part of our applied research as establishing new test systems, e.g. in tissue-type-specific cells. Here, by the way, we are not only interested in TRPs, but also in other ion channels.

Thanks, Dirk.