Glossary

The following terms may be useful for your understanding of Pastel BioScience's technologies and the markets in which it operates.

Affinity
The "tightness" with which a capture molecule binds to its target. A molecule having high affinity for its target will remain bound even under stringent washing conditions whereas lower affinity molecules will be detached and removed.

Bioinformatics
The process of examining 'mining' test results, using a range of statistical techniques and pattern recognition algorithms, from large numbers of samples to find potentially useful information.

Capture Molecule
A capture molecule normally recognises, in a specific manner, a target molecule through interactions between the two based most commonly on the three-dimensional surface structure of the target molecule. Capture molecules are most generally antibodies and their derivatives but can also be other protein based scaffolds - fibronectin, MHC receptors or even non-protein based entities such as DNA in the case of aptamers or plastic like polymers in the case of molecular imprinting.

All of these capture molecules, used in their traditional configuration, have the disadvantage that they require one capture molecule per target molecule to be recognised. As a result, the expected 30,000 plus proteins of the human proteome would require the equivalent number of capture molecules. Pastel BioScience's capture molecules can be multiplexed in such a way to significatly reduce this number.

Ligand
A molecule or other chemical entity that binds to a protein (target) to form a larger complex and therefore is of potential use in detecting the target protein. Can be synonymous with capture molecule.

Microarray
Otherwise referred to as a chip, these devices have very small spots of different capture molecules deposited in a regular, usually grid-like, pattern on a solid surface. Incubation of a test sample with the microarray will reveal a profile of the presence / abscence of different target molecules which can be used for research purposes in identifying novel therapeutic targets or as a diagnostic for the detection of diseases.

Multiplex
Multiplexing is the ability to simultaneously detect more than one target species in an assay system.

Proteomics
A field of research that seeks to identify and characterise the complete set of protein, and protein-protein interactions in a given species.

Sensitivity
Usually referred to in terms of a diagnostic test and implying the smallest amount of a target molecule that can be detected.

Specificity
The ability of a capture molecule to uniquely bind to its target molecule and not to other (non-specific) molecules.