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Researchers from the University of ÐÂÀ˲ÊƱ have developed a new technology for drug and functional genomics screenings, which could reshape the way diseases are treated.Ìý

The technology called dFLASH (dual FLuorescent transcription factor Activity Sensor for Histone-integrated live-cell reporting) is a modular biological pathway sensor which enables identification of new cellular targets in the treatment of disease.ÌýÌý

dFLASH’s overall goal is to develop a system that would enable researchers to investigate any pathway of interest in cells to explore how they could be targeted in the treatment of disease and/or used to develop new medicines.ÌýÌý

This new technology enables rapid screening of hundreds of thousands to millions of individual drugs or genes in living cells to accelerate the identification of new therapeutic targets and medicines.ÌýÌý

The work by researchers across the University's School of Biological Sciences, Robinson Research Institute (RRI), ÐÂÀ˲ÊƱ Centre for Epigenetics, South Australian immunoGENomics Cancer Institute (SAiGENCI) has been published in .Ìý

To demonstrate this, the authors used dFLASH to explore how cells respond to low oxygen, which is very important in the treatment of cancer and anaemia, and the hormonal progesterone signalling pathway which plays imperative roles in controlling female reproduction.ÌýÌý

Together, dFLASH provides a highly sensitive system which can be used for large scale drug and genetic based scre