Unchained Labs is a life science tools company focused on solving problems for biologics and gene therapy researchers. The solutions from Unchained Labs are used by biopharma researchers around the world to analyze and characterize large, complex molecules and to make their research jobs easier. Early this year, the company announced a new lentivirus application for its unique Leprechaun tool.

“Lentiviruses are beastly gene therapy vectors that are among the hardest to characterize,” according to Unchained Labs officials. “They are harvested from messy cell culture soup that most analytical techniques can’t even touch without a slew of clean-up steps. To be viable, they must be the right size, have the correct surface proteins, and contain a capsid loaded with the ribonucleic acid (RNA) they were designed to deliver into cells. Researchers typically piece this data together using at least three different instruments that require a bunch of sample prep to measure one attribute at a time.”

In contrast, Leprechaun lets researchers use a combination of antibody capture, fluorescence, and interferometry to quantify lentiviruses based on their size, surface proteins, and structural features that make them work. The new RNA application directly measures the percentage of lentiviruses that contain a capsid and are carrying RNA, both on the inside of the virus. For the first time, researchers can measure their intact lentivirus titer at any step of their process, including directly from crude harvest samples.

Leprechaun was launched in January 2023 as the first platform to simultaneously measure lentivirus titer and structure at any step in the development process, no matter how crude or messy the sample. When launched, Leprechaun could characterize and quantify lentiviruses in crude or pure samples, measuring their size and checking them for the right structural components. Its enhancement this year means that Leprechaun can now confirm RNA as well.

“Leprechaun could already characterize lentiviruses like nothing else out there,” says Taegen Clary, Senior Vice President of Marketing. “The ability to now characterize and quantify all the critical components of these crazy complicated vectors, including RNA, will change the game for scientists developing them. What’s more is that we’ve also fully updated our exosome applications to make it simple and easy to identify and quantify them using Leprechaun, too.”

Unchained Labs became a Hacienda tenant in August 2022. It built a new headquarters and moved into its Hacienda campus in September 2023. All of the company’s California-based science, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and sales squads share a 121,000-square-foot building with state-of-the-art science facilities.

“We now have everyone together in one beautiful, functional forever home,” said Tim Harkness, Founder and CEO of Unchained Labs, when the company moved into its new headquarters.

For more information about Unchained Labs, please visit www.unchainedlabs.com, www.linkedin.com/company/unchained-labs, or www.youtube.com/c/UnchainedLabs.