DanBayley - 12-7-2013 at 02:01
Hey, I just came across this technology that involves a biotin-based biological binding method with increased enzyme resistant for in vivo targeting
etc. I thought this was pretty awesome because it can provide non-radioactive targeting (for specific compounds).
Does anyone know if that would be possible with this technique? Or maybe it's better suited to something else?
I am happy to research and provide more details on the tech 
bahamuth - 12-7-2013 at 06:02
How does this work for in vivo targeting, as far as I know to use biotin as a linker one needs a streptavidin compartment to grab the biotin,
and so one needs the streptavidin grabber to first be part of your target...
There are various streptavidin(-like) compartments that have different resistance against certain things like enzymes/temperatures/denaturants etc.
out there but I've never heard of biotin used for in vivo as far as I recall.
Please elaborate on what you are asking....
DanBayley - 15-7-2013 at 08:20
Hi Bahamuth, I could be very wrong but I think the streptavidin, in this case, is already part of the biotin.
For the definitive answer, you can get all the details of the tech here: http://marblar.com/challenge/biotin
Unspar - 5-8-2013 at 11:39
I'm still not sure what you're asking.
The avidin-biotin interaction is one of the strongest non-covalent interactions we know of. It's pretty damn useful in that respect because it means
we can tag things with one of them and use the other to fish them out. It's a way to fight entropy and concentrate/purify something out of a solution.
IIRC, one of the problems with the A-B interaction in vivo is that it gets broken apart by enzymes in your body.
What these people have come up with is a system which can't be cleaved by the biotinase in your body. I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for
for drug delivery as it may be that the interaction will still be degraded, just more slowly than usual. To clarify that point I'd read more about
their system (avidin exists to bind biotin for a reason, we need it as a cofactor for certain reactions).
Honestly though, I'm not sure why they can't use other interactions for drug delivery (ie, why attach your payload to biotin when you could just link
it to the antibody before you inject the patient with it). It's possible to be sure, but I think the reason they're hosting that contest it because
of the problems they're having in bringing it to market.