Promega has launched a new live-cell target engagement platform aiming to close a long-standing gap between biochemical and cellular assays for understudied or difficult-to-interrogate proteins. 

TheTarSeer BRETSA Target Engagement System is a novel bioluminescence resonance energy transfer-based shift assay for detecting ligand-protein interactions in intact cells using protein denaturation.  

The platform aims to give drug discovery researchers early, target-specific cellular insights by validating weak or early chemical matter and expanding the targets accessible in live-cell drug discovery workflows. 

The system, presented at SLAS2026, will allow researchers to measure potency and rank-order compound binding in live cells, promising broad applicability and a flexible, scalable workflow. 

“You can now potentially study intracellular target engagement for any protein in live cells,” said Matt Robers, Associate Director of R&D at Promega.

“This platform will give drug discovery researchers new starting points to go after a huge fraction of previously intractable therapeutic targets within the human proteome.”