Next-generation, bench-top nanopore solutions for comprehensive, full–length, single-molecule protein characterisation

Next-generation, bench-top nanopore solutions for comprehensive, full–length, single-molecule protein characterisation

Portal’s mission is to provide scientists and clinicians with fundamental tools to understand proteins and metabolites, enabling ground-breaking discoveries in health and biology, and expediting bringing new drugs and treatments to market.

scientist looking through magnifying glass in a lab
scientist looking through magnifying glass in a lab
scientist looking through magnifying glass in a lab
scientist looking through magnifying glass in a lab

Proteins are the functional units of biology

Single-molecule DNA and RNA sequencing has revolutionised science and healthcare, but the genome provides only the blueprint for an individual.

Proteins perform the actions in cells, and are the real-world readout of how our cellular biology changes due to disease and changes in our health.

The protein landscape of cells is dynamic, the protein abundance responds to changes in the environment and health. Individual proteins are altered through post-translational modification.

Deeper characterisation of the proteome — all protein variants in our cells — is critical for unlocking the inner workings of our functional biology, and will enable us to develop a new generation of better diagnostics and design better drugs.

3 people in a lab with one writing on a whiteboard
3 people in a lab with one writing on a whiteboard
3 people in a lab with one writing on a whiteboard
3 people in a lab with one writing on a whiteboard
person in lab working on laptop
person in lab working on laptop
person in lab working on laptop

Full-length protein sequencing: the complete proteome in high definition

Portal has developed a new generation of powerful and scalable desktop instruments built on nanopore technology that will unlock a deeper understanding of the human proteome.

Nanopores are nature’s biosensors — devices with atomic-level sensitivity, honed over billions of years of evolution. With expertise in cutting-edge biochemistry, engineering and machine learning, Portal's products build upon these remarkable properties to enable single-molecule sensing. Our cutting-edge protein characterisation methods build on foundational work by the Maglia lab at the University of Groningen:

Using our nanopore arrays, our breakthrough chemistry enables proteins to be read end-to-end as intact single molecules, which allows for full-length coverage of the protein sequence, and all its modifications.

Our single-molecule nanopore biosensing platforms are one of the most exciting next-generation platform technologies:

  • The Human Proteoform Project aims to characterise and assign function to the millions of proteoforms predicted from the ~20,000 or so known human genes.

Using our novel nanopore sensing chemistry, our flexible, bench-top instrument enables the real-time analysis of complex mixtures of biomolecules, providing rapid insights into protein abundance, identity, heterogeneity and variation.

3 people in a lab with one writing on a whiteboard
3 people in a lab with one writing on a whiteboard
3 people in a lab with one writing on a whiteboard
3 people in a lab with one writing on a whiteboard
person in lab working on laptop
person in lab working on laptop
person in lab working on laptop

Advantages of Portal instruments

  • Real-time data, fast results — means collecting only as much data as needed to answer the biological question, with answers in as little as a few minutes

  • Flexible — Portal technology can be adapted to any proteomic or metabolomic analysis

  • Full-length — proteins are not fragmented and are read end-to-end: complete coverage of the proteins of interest, at the single-molecule level. Provides complete proteoform quantitation and profiling with no loss of coverage

  • Accessible — affordable instruments and cartridges to suit the demands of both small labs and high volume labs. Deploy Portal technology right in the centre of your workflows.

  • Scalable — whether small pilot tests using purified proteins, hypothesis-driven questions using pull-downs, or larger, whole-proteome analyses

  • Real-time data, fast results — means collecting only as much data as needed to answer the biological question, with answers in as little as a few minutes

  • Flexible — Portal technology can be adapted to any proteomic or metabolomic analysis

  • Full-length — proteins are not fragmented and are read end-to-end: complete coverage of the proteins of interest, at the single-molecule level. Provides complete proteoform quantitation and profiling with no loss of coverage

  • Accessible — affordable instruments and cartridges to suit the demands of both small labs and high volume labs. Deploy Portal technology right in the centre of your workflows

  • Scalable — whether small pilot tests using purified proteins, hypothesis-driven questions using pull-downs, or larger, whole-proteome analyses

Applications

Protein variants

Isoforms
Truncations
Mutations
Translation errors

Post-translational
modifications

Phosphorylation
Glycosylation
Acetylation
Deamidation
Conjugation
and many others…

Proteoforms

Classification
De novo discovery

Biologics QC

Sample degradation
Contamination
Quantitation
Chirality

Protein identification and quantification

Quickly identify any protein of interest from a whole proteome, using our bench-top, cartridge-based instruments.

Straightforward quantification of proteins from a complex mixtures by molecular counting.

Full-length polypeptide analysis ensures no peptide dropout, and molecule-by-molecule analysis reveals mutations, isoforms, truncations, and fusions.

With no theoretical upper limit on the length of proteins, our platform can characterise any protein from short peptides to large proteins >100 kDa.

Post-Translational Modifications (PTMs)

PTMs are chemical changes to a protein that are not encoded at the DNA or RNA level. These changes regulate protein activity, localisation and interactions with other biomolecules, and are frequently implicated in human diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration. The pattern of PTMs along the full length of a polypeptide molecule is its proteoform. 

Portal's instruments are the first to provide comprehensive protein variant profiling of full-length proteins on a single-molecule basis, revealing new proteoforms and overcoming many of the coverage, quantitation and sensitivity limitations of traditional proteomics methods.

Existing proteomics methods fragment proteins, resulting in loss of the pattern of PTMs along individual proteins, and reconstructing the proteoform requires painstaking comparison with other samples. By analysing the full length of intact proteins, Portal's technology recovers the full proteoform of individual molecules and quantifies the species present in a sample.

Early Access

Portal's instruments are available today through the protein characterisation services provided by our laboratories and we welcome opportunities for collaboration. Interested commercial or academic parties can also sign up for our Early Access Programme.

Services

Specialised R&D Discovery and Development Solutions, tailored to solve difficult proteomics problems for biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers in various sectors

Sample-to-lab service for sample characterisation

Desktop Instruments

A range of desktop instruments that bring state-of-art protein characterisation to the lab

Flexible solutions for everyone: academic research to biopharma & biotech and industrial; small labs to high-volume workflows in service centres and core facilities

A range of desktop instruments that bring state-of-art protein characterisation to the lab

Flexible solutions for everyone: academic research to biopharma & biotech and industrial; small labs to high-volume workflows in service centres and core facilities

If you are interested in engaging our service, collaborating, or participating in our Early Access Programme, please contact us using the form below or send an email to applications@portalbiotech.com

Expressions of interest are processed in accordance with our GDPR privacy statement

Expressions of interest are processed in accordance with our GDPR privacy statement

Expressions of interest are processed in accordance with our GDPR privacy statement

Expressions of interest are processed in accordance with our GDPR privacy statement

Expressions of interest are processed in accordance with our GDPR privacy statement

Team

Portal's category-defining technology would not be possible without the incredible talent of our scientists, engineers and technicians. Supporting them is Portal's executive team, who have over 50 years' combined experience in biosensors and nanopore science.

Andrew Heron

Andrew Heron

CEO & Co-founder

Andy was previously a senior member of the Oxford Nanopore Technology team that was responsible for commercialising its range of gene sequencers. Andy has made significant contributions to the field of nanopore technology in the last 15 years with over 40 patents and multiple publications and brings this knowledge and experience to bear in accelerating Portal’s new products pipeline. Andy completed post-doc work at the Department of Chemistry, Oxford University and has a PhD in chemical biology from Imperial College, London.

Andrew Heron

Andrew Heron

CEO & Co-founder

Andy was previously a senior member of the Oxford Nanopore Technology team that was responsible for commercialising its range of gene sequencers. Andy has made significant contributions to the field of nanopore technology in the last 15 years with over 40 patents and multiple publications and brings this knowledge and experience to bear in accelerating Portal’s new products pipeline. Andy completed post-doc work at the Department of Chemistry, Oxford University and has a PhD in chemical biology from Imperial College, London.

Andrew Heron

Andrew Heron

CEO & Co-founder

Andy was previously a senior member of the Oxford Nanopore Technology team that was responsible for commercialising its range of gene sequencers. Andy has made significant contributions to the field of nanopore technology in the last 15 years with over 40 patents and multiple publications and brings this knowledge and experience to bear in accelerating Portal’s new products pipeline. Andy completed post-doc work at the Department of Chemistry, Oxford University and has a PhD in chemical biology from Imperial College, London.

Andrew Heron

Andrew Heron

CEO & Co-founder

Andy was previously a senior member of the Oxford Nanopore Technology team that was responsible for commercialising its range of gene sequencers. Andy has made significant contributions to the field of nanopore technology in the last 15 years with over 40 patents and multiple publications and brings this knowledge and experience to bear in accelerating Portal’s new products pipeline. Andy completed post-doc work at the Department of Chemistry, Oxford University and has a PhD in chemical biology from Imperial College, London.

Andrew Heron

Andrew Heron

CEO & Co-founder

Andy was previously a senior member of the Oxford Nanopore Technology team that was responsible for commercialising its range of gene sequencers. Andy has made significant contributions to the field of nanopore technology in the last 15 years with over 40 patents and multiple publications and brings this knowledge and experience to bear in accelerating Portal’s new products pipeline. Andy completed post-doc work at the Department of Chemistry, Oxford University and has a PhD in chemical biology from Imperial College, London.

Giovanni Maglia

Giovanni Maglia

CSO & Co-founder

Giovanni is Professor of Chemical Biology at Groningen University and has been involved in bioengineering applications using nanopores for almost two decades. He has published extensively in the fields of nanopore bioengineering, specifically in relation to proteomics and metabolomics where he has been credited in the design of artificial transmembrane machines. Giovanni holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, and has completed postdoctoral work at Oxford University in nanopore sequencing.

Giovanni Maglia

Giovanni Maglia

CSO & Co-founder

Giovanni is Professor of Chemical Biology at Groningen University and has been involved in bioengineering applications using nanopores for almost two decades. He has published extensively in the fields of nanopore bioengineering, specifically in relation to proteomics and metabolomics where he has been credited in the design of artificial transmembrane machines. Giovanni holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, and has completed postdoctoral work at Oxford University in nanopore sequencing.

Giovanni Maglia

Giovanni Maglia

CSO & Co-founder

Giovanni is Professor of Chemical Biology at Groningen University and has been involved in bioengineering applications using nanopores for almost two decades. He has published extensively in the fields of nanopore bioengineering, specifically in relation to proteomics and metabolomics where he has been credited in the design of artificial transmembrane machines. Giovanni holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, and has completed postdoctoral work at Oxford University in nanopore sequencing.

Giovanni Maglia

Giovanni Maglia

CSO & Co-founder

Giovanni is Professor of Chemical Biology at Groningen University and has been involved in bioengineering applications using nanopores for almost two decades. He has published extensively in the fields of nanopore bioengineering, specifically in relation to proteomics and metabolomics where he has been credited in the design of artificial transmembrane machines. Giovanni holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, and has completed postdoctoral work at Oxford University in nanopore sequencing.

Giovanni Maglia

Giovanni Maglia

CSO & Co-founder

Giovanni is Professor of Chemical Biology at Groningen University and has been involved in bioengineering applications using nanopores for almost two decades. He has published extensively in the fields of nanopore bioengineering, specifically in relation to proteomics and metabolomics where he has been credited in the design of artificial transmembrane machines. Giovanni holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, and has completed postdoctoral work at Oxford University in nanopore sequencing.

Selly Saini

Selly Saini

COO

Selly has held senior positions in the medical devices and diagnostics sectors for over twenty years, and has brought multiple products into healthcare markets. He was previously VP at Johnson & Johnson, CEO at Inside Biometrics, Senior Director of Operations at Oxford Nanopore and COO at Quanta Dialysis Technologies. Selly has broad experience and specialises in scaling companies, operating in regulated markets, gaining reimbursement with first-in-class products through clinical studies and developing robust, high-volume manufacturing supply chains. Selly has a PhD in bioelectronics from Cranfield University and performed post-doc work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Z).

Selly Saini

Selly Saini

COO

Selly has held senior positions in the medical devices and diagnostics sectors for over twenty years, and has brought multiple products into healthcare markets. He was previously VP at Johnson & Johnson, CEO at Inside Biometrics, Senior Director of Operations at Oxford Nanopore and COO at Quanta Dialysis Technologies. Selly has broad experience and specialises in scaling companies, operating in regulated markets, gaining reimbursement with first-in-class products through clinical studies and developing robust, high-volume manufacturing supply chains. Selly has a PhD in bioelectronics from Cranfield University and performed post-doc work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Z).

Selly Saini

Selly Saini

COO

Selly has held senior positions in the medical devices and diagnostics sectors for over twenty years, and has brought multiple products into healthcare markets. He was previously VP at Johnson & Johnson, CEO at Inside Biometrics, Senior Director of Operations at Oxford Nanopore and COO at Quanta Dialysis Technologies. Selly has broad experience and specialises in scaling companies, operating in regulated markets, gaining reimbursement with first-in-class products through clinical studies and developing robust, high-volume manufacturing supply chains. Selly has a PhD in bioelectronics from Cranfield University and performed post-doc work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Z).

Selly Saini

Selly Saini

COO

Selly has held senior positions in the medical devices and diagnostics sectors for over twenty years, and has brought multiple products into healthcare markets. He was previously VP at Johnson & Johnson, CEO at Inside Biometrics, Senior Director of Operations at Oxford Nanopore and COO at Quanta Dialysis Technologies. Selly has broad experience and specialises in scaling companies, operating in regulated markets, gaining reimbursement with first-in-class products through clinical studies and developing robust, high-volume manufacturing supply chains. Selly has a PhD in bioelectronics from Cranfield University and performed post-doc work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Z).

Selly Saini

Selly Saini

COO

Selly has held senior positions in the medical devices and diagnostics sectors for over twenty years, and has brought multiple products into healthcare markets. He was previously VP at Johnson & Johnson, CEO at Inside Biometrics, Senior Director of Operations at Oxford Nanopore and COO at Quanta Dialysis Technologies. Selly has broad experience and specialises in scaling companies, operating in regulated markets, gaining reimbursement with first-in-class products through clinical studies and developing robust, high-volume manufacturing supply chains. Selly has a PhD in bioelectronics from Cranfield University and performed post-doc work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Z).

Tim Massinfham

Tim Massingham

VP ML & Bioinformatics

Tim has been involved in the fields of machine learning and bioinformatics for over twenty years. He led the machine learning work at Oxford Nanopore for several years, driving fundamental changes in the algorithms that in turn created valuable improvements to sequencing performance. Prior to this he spent ten years as a staff scientist at the EMBL - European Bioinformatics Institute, where he researched bioinformatics algorithms. Tim has a PhD in Computational Biology from Cambridge University where he also completed Master’s and Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics.

Tim Massinfham

Tim Massingham

VP ML & Bioinformatics

Tim has been involved in the fields of machine learning and bioinformatics for over twenty years. He led the machine learning work at Oxford Nanopore for several years, driving fundamental changes in the algorithms that in turn created valuable improvements to sequencing performance. Prior to this he spent ten years as a staff scientist at the EMBL - European Bioinformatics Institute, where he researched bioinformatics algorithms. Tim has a PhD in Computational Biology from Cambridge University where he also completed Master’s and Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics.

Tim Massinfham

Tim Massingham

VP ML & Bioinformatics

Tim has been involved in the fields of machine learning and bioinformatics for over twenty years. He led the machine learning work at Oxford Nanopore for several years, driving fundamental changes in the algorithms that in turn created valuable improvements to sequencing performance. Prior to this he spent ten years as a staff scientist at the EMBL - European Bioinformatics Institute, where he researched bioinformatics algorithms. Tim has a PhD in Computational Biology from Cambridge University where he also completed Master’s and Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics.

Tim Massinfham

Tim Massingham

VP ML & Bioinformatics

Tim has been involved in the fields of machine learning and bioinformatics for over twenty years. He led the machine learning work at Oxford Nanopore for several years, driving fundamental changes in the algorithms that in turn created valuable improvements to sequencing performance. Prior to this he spent ten years as a staff scientist at the EMBL - European Bioinformatics Institute, where he researched bioinformatics algorithms. Tim has a PhD in Computational Biology from Cambridge University where he also completed Master’s and Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics.

Tim Massinfham

Tim Massingham

VP ML & Bioinformatics

Tim has been involved in the fields of machine learning and bioinformatics for over twenty years. He led the machine learning work at Oxford Nanopore for several years, driving fundamental changes in the algorithms that in turn created valuable improvements to sequencing performance. Prior to this he spent ten years as a staff scientist at the EMBL - European Bioinformatics Institute, where he researched bioinformatics algorithms. Tim has a PhD in Computational Biology from Cambridge University where he also completed Master’s and Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics.

Careers

Join our dynamic team at the forefront of proteomics and biotechnology. At Portal Biotech, we are dedicated to revolutionizing the way we understand and manipulate proteins to drive advancements in human health, technology and biology. If you are passionate about cutting-edge science and making a difference, please get in touch using the email address below.

Contact us

For general enquiries, please email info@portalbiotech.com

For careers enquiries, please email careers@portalbiotech.com

For collaborations or information about our early access programme, please email applications@portalbiotech,com

lab with 5 different people working on different stations
lab with 5 different people working on different stations