About the TDC Facility
The Target Discovery Core (TDC) was founded in November 2016 with the support of the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute. It underwent substantial expansion after being funded by a Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Core Facility Support Award (RP250601) in June 2025. The TDC has about 1100 square feet of lab space within the state-of-the-art Barshop Institute building on the UTHSA Greehey Campus. The Barshop building is located within a 3-5-minute walking distance to Greehey CCRI, the South Texas Research Facility, and Mays Cancer Center (MCC), and a short 5-minute shuttle ride (or a 20-minute walk) to the UTHSA main campus, providing easy access for all cancer researchers at UTHSA. The TDC has a dedicated tissue culture room, along with all the necessary equipment and highly qualified personnel, to fulfill all service requests expeditiously. The facility is equipped with the LabCyte Echo acoustic dispensing system for plating library oligos and compounds into 96- and 384-well microplates. Reagents, buffers, and cells are dispensed using a Tecan Freedom EVO 150 and a Bio-Tek EL406 bulk dispenser. In addition, the TDC has the V4 human genome siRNA Library, containing 64,752 siRNAs to cover 21,584 human genes, as well as defined human siRNA subsets for pathway- and mechanism-based screenings. It has the following pooled and arrayed CRISPR libraries available: 1) pooled human CRISPR KO (Brunello), interference (Dolcetto), and activation library (Calabrese P65-HSF); 2) human whole genome arrayed CRISPR gRNA library (Synthego); and 3) several human CRISPR KO sublibraries. For pooled CRISPR screenings, the TDC collaborates with the CPRIT-supported Cancer Genome Sequencing and Computation Core (CGSCC) at GCCRI/UTHSA for next-generation sequencing, data storage, and analysis. Additionally, the TDC is co-located with the High-Throughput Screening (HTS) Core of the UTHSA Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (CIDD) (https://cidd.uthscsa.edu/) and the Drug Discovery Shared Resource of the Mays Cancer Center. They share a number of state-of-the-art pieces of equipment, including plate-based and high-content imaging HTS systems, a variety of liquid handlers, and various biophysical assay instruments.
All TDC users should acknowledge the technical support provided by the core and the financial support from the CPRIT Core Facility Support Award (RP250601).
Our Mission
The mission of the TDC is to provide services for investigators at UT Health San Antonio (UTHSA) as well as those from other research institutes in Texas, utilizing state-of-the-art target identification and validation (TIV) technologies to promote fundamental research in cancer biology and accelerate cancer drug discovery.
Services
The services provided by the TDC aim to assist cancer researchers, including those who focus on pediatric cancers, to rapidly identify and validate new cancer targets to drive the development of novel cancer therapeutics via target deconvolution (i.e., using a known anticancer agent to find its target) and target discovery (i.e., discovering a target to develop new anticancer therapeutics). This is achieved by providing the state-of-the-art technologies to investigators, including genome-wide and cherry-picked gene RNAi screening, pooled CRISPR genome-wide knockout (KO) and activation screening, arrayed genome-wide and cherry-picked gene CRISPR knockout screening, gene editing and isogenic cell line generation, activity-based protein profiling (ABPP), and proximity labeling (PL).
CRISPR Screening
CRISPR screening can yield powerful and robust data to identify new genes and pathways, as well as provide insights into the mechanisms of action of drugs and identify synthetic lethal partners. CRISPR/Cas9 screening can be divided into two main types: pooled screening and array-based screening. The pooled screening introduces a library of single guide RNAs (sgRNAs) that target different genes in cells, followed by the application of a selection pressure (such as drug treatment) to enrich or deplete cells with specific sgRNA-mediated gene knockouts. In arrayed CRISPR screenings, each sgRNA is delivered separately to a distinct population of cells through transfection or electroporation. The cells are then cultured in individual wells of a multi-well plate and subjected to various assays to measure the phenotypes induced by the selection pressure (such as drug treatment). Our core facility provides both pooled and array-based genome-wide and sublibrary screening. We have the following libraries available for use:
- Human CRISPR Activation Pooled Library (Calabrese P65-HSF)
- Human CRISPR Inhibition Pooled library (Calabrese P65-HSF)
- Human CRISPR Knockout Pooled Library (Brunello) (pooled)
- Human Whole Genome Arrayed Library (Synthego)
siRNA Screening
TIF also provides genome-wide and sublibrary siRNA screening. The Human Genome siRNA Library (V4) contains 64,752 siRNA to cover 21,584 human genes. We also have the following defined human siRNA subsets for screening:
- Epigenetics
- Drug Targets
- DNA Damage
- Oncogenes
- Tumor Suppressors
- Cell Surface Receptors
- Kinases
- Phosphatases
- Membrane Trafficking
- Ubiquitinylation
- Ion Channels
- Nuclear Hormone Receptors
- Proteases
- Transcription Factors
miRNA Screening
We also offer the mirVana miRNA Mimic Library (2,555 targets, mirBase 20) and the mirVana miRNA Inhibitor Library (2,555 targets, mirBase 20) to help customers identify microRNA involvement in biological processes such as development and growth, metabolic pathways, and diseases, as well as cancer progression.
Gene Editing and Isogenic Cell Generation
We provide CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing services to help researchers better understand the functions of genes in biological processes and develop assays for HTS for drug discovery by performing gene knock-out, tag-knock-in, and isogenic cell generation.
High-throughput Cell Viability Testing of Single Drug and Drug Combinations
We assist customers in testing single drugs or drug combinations across multiple cell lines in a high-throughput manner.
Microscale Thermophoresis (MST) Assay Using Nanotemper
MST is a biophysical assay that can be utilized to identify protein-protein, protein-DNA, and protein-drug interactions.
Activity-Based Protein Profiling (ABPP) and Proximity Labeling (PL)
We provide ABPP and PL for target deconvolution. Please contact Dr. Dongwen Lyu (lyud@uthscsa.edu) to discuss your needs for these assays.