Preclinical CRO Services

Phenotypic Screening for CNS Disorders

Drug discovery in CNS disorders has becoming one of the most difficult and costly franchises in modern pharmaceutical research. Many CNS disorders are too complicated to be narrowed down to the single target for mechanisms, therefore limiting the benefits of target- and cell-based approaches before pharmacological validation in animal models. Joekai’s “phenotypic in vivo screening” services with fly models provide direct indication of clinical-relevant behaviors in high-throughput manner. As screened out at entire organ level, drug candidates are having fewer concerns on ADMET issues. Feel free to contact us for the interests regarding to the services provided below, and the most current updates (contact us).

Alzheimer's disease (AD)

Human AD patients suffer progressive dementia problems. A phenotypic screening directly at learning & memory behavior level will be an excellent strategy to start with for AD drug discovery projects. We offers professional services to evaluate the resuce of learning and memory deficit caused by drug candidates in massive screening scale with fruitflies, and in further pharmacological validation with rodents. Other useful assays in fly system (e.g., pathological brain section, gene profiling, and etc...) are also provided in below:

	Fly A-beta 42 model	Fly tau-hyperphosphorylation model	Mouse double K.O. model
Memory test	√	√	√
Locomotion test	√	√
Life span assay	√	√
Brain sectioning for pathology	√
Stress tests	√
Gene profiling	√

Parkinson’s disease (PD)

Unlike AD, human PD patients are characterized with locomotion deficits and uncontrolled movement. We have adapted climbing and flying tests in flies for a better accessment during the initial screening for PD drugs. Due to the known pathological sites and mechanizms for PD, the brain section images of dopaminergic (DA) neurons and oxidative stress tests are also included. See below table and contact us for details.

	Fly Pink model	Fly Parkin model	Other fly loss-of-function model
Memory test	√	√	√
Climbing test	√	√	√
Courtship assay			√
Pathology section on DA neurons			√
Oxidative stress tests			√

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

	*Fly FMR1 model**	Fly neuroligin model	Other fly loss-of-function model
Reverse memory test	√
Repeated behavior test	√
Courtship assay

* Fragile X mental retardation 1

Schizophrenia

	Fly Dysbindin model	Fly DISC1 model	Other fly loss-of-function model
Memory test	√	√
Locomotor activity	√	√
Mating preference	√