Axion BioSystems Launches the Maestro ZHT Live-Cell Screening Platform

Axion BioSystems has launched the Maestro ZHT high-throughput screening platform, leveraging their expertise in live-cell instrumentation to add a new dimension to drug discovery and development.

Rapid technological advances are leading to a host of new drug, biologic, and cell-based therapeutics, creating new medical treatments thought not possible until recently. Still, challenges remain to identify and test new candidates, capture complex biology with a simple assay and reduce cost, time, and waste of precious antibodies and cells. The Maestro ZHT meets this challenge with an easy, automated, real-time, live-cell assay. Whether comparing immune cell-mediated killing by CRISPR-derived CAR-T cells, vaccine efficacy, or chemotherapies against patient-derived tumor cells, the versatile Maestro ZHT will monitor cells continuously, without labels or dyes. With the Maestro ZHT, researchers can chart the magnitude and duration of responses like GPCR-mediated signaling over minutes, or antiviral efficacy over days and weeks.

"My team has been actively using Axion's Maestro Z technology to identify potential therapeutics for COVID-19 with impressive results," said Prof. Chris Basler, Director of the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis at Georgia State University. "I'm excited to see how this new high-throughput Maestro ZHT system will accelerate the development of new drug and cell therapies."

"Cell-based assays are critical to evaluate human biology in vitro," stated Jim Ross, Axion BioSystems' CTO. "But cells have complex dynamic pathways spanning acute and chronic timescales that are difficult to fully capture with a single time and endpoint assay. The new Maestro ZHT continuously measures 384 wells, noninvasively quantifying proliferation, cytotoxicity, signaling, and more in one plate."

"Building on the commercial success of our Maestro Z system, this new high-throughput instrument will open up Axion's technology and accelerate candidate drug screening to bring new treatments to the market faster," stated Tom O'Brien, Axion BioSystems' President and CEO.

Designed with high-throughput applications in mind, the Maestro ZHT can help advance new treatments to the clinic. The Maestro ZHT's powerful turn-key software lets you quantify kinetic cellular responses, monitor experiments remotely, and is available with regulatory compliance features to meet FDA 21 CFR Part 11 data traceability requirements.

For more information please visit www.axionbio.com/products/systems/maestro-zht