PICT combines the know-how and the expertise of three facilities located in Toulouse: The IPBS (Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology: biophysics, structural biology and bioinformatics), which is the coordinator site, the SPCMIB (laboratory of Synthesis and Physico-Chemistry of Molecules of Biological Interest: medicinal chemistry) and the TBI (Toulouse Biotechnology Institute: enzyme discovery and optimization). These facilities conduct cutting-edge research in their own fields and dedicate technological know-how, equipment and staff to the platform.

Scientific offer

PICT provides its users with access to the tools and scientific expertise necessary for the determination of macromolecular structures, the screening and the measurement of interactions by biophysical methods, the chemical synthesis for the development of libraries of focused compounds and the optimization of hit-to-lead ligands. PICT also provides analysis, purification and identification of various families of molecules and proteins of low molecular weight, protein engineering, directed evolution and high-throughput screening of optimized enzymes, and finally, functional metagenomics for the discovery of new enzymes.

Equipment

The IPBS site focuses on peptide synthesis, on the identification of ligands using biophysical screening technologies and on the biophysical characterization of proteins and protein-ligands complexes (Dynamic Light Scattering, Size Exclusion Chromatography coupled with Multi-Angle Light Scattering, Isothermal Titration Calorimetry, Differential Scanninf Fluorimetry (DSF) and Nano-DSF, Microscale Thermophoresis, Spectral Shift). It also provides structural biology using NMR (500 MHz, 600 MHz cryoprobe and 700 MHz) and/or X-ray crystallography (crystallization and visualization robots) and bioinformatics (224-core and 40-core clusters). An in-house fragment library (about 1000 compounds) has been developed for Fragment-Based Ligand Discovery projects, and the platform also offers access to libraries of “drug-like” compounds (>11000) and peptides (>20000).

Activity

PICT is part of the regional network GenoToul and has received the national IBiSA label. The platform has been certified ISO-9001 since 2012 and NFX50-900 since 2015. This certifies the quality of services offered, with an emphasis on process control, accountability, traceability, and customer satisfaction. PICT is open to academic and government agencies as well as to companies at both the local and national levels. Various kinds of services are offered ranging from access to specialized equipment to a complete service delivery, under collaborative contracts and industrial partnerships.