Cancer is the second biggest killer in the world. Research in this field is getting more and more technologically advanced every day, so we interviewed Francesco Paolo Fiorentino who is Chief science officer at Kitos Biotech. An Italian contract research organization, Kitos Biotech, provides scientific and technical support for the development of anticancer drugs at the preclinical stage.

Francesco Paolo Fiorentino

About your lab, what is its history, its mission?

Kitos Biotech is an independent, privately owned company founded in 2016 thanks to the support of the Smart & Start Programme of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. We are a team of cell and molecular biologists with more than 10 years of experience in cancer research. Our mission is to carry out our customers’ R&D programs at the best quality standards and to become an extension of our client’s team.

What services does your lab offer?

We support research centers, biotech and pharma companies in the field of medicinal chemistry and oncology to develop their products at a preclinical stage. We help in the development of a scientifically sound and cost-effective experimental plan to evaluate in vitro drug efficacy and the mechanism of action of our customers’ products. We carry out experiments in our fully-equipped laboratory and provide ready-to-use results and assistance for their interpretation.

What sets your expertise apart from others?

We take advantage of automation systems, live-cell imaging, and more than 100 in-house cell lines to provide highly sensitive and reliable results. Thanks to the molecular characterization of our models, we help our clients in choosing the proper models and in obtaining correlation analysis between drug efficacy and their favorite targets.

What challenges are you willing to address in the near future?

We are currently validating a long-term cytotoxicity assay on 3D tumor spheroids to assess drug efficacy on tumor recurrence, which is the main adverse event and cause of death for various tumor types.

If you are interested in knowing more about Kitos Biotech, visit its profile.