Carterra Vega™
High-Throughput SPR
Without Compromise
The World’s First and Only 48-channel HT-SPR Platform
Interrogate >20,000 analytes a day!
Carterra Vega Platform
Carterra Vega sets a new standard in high-throughput surface plasmon resonance. Powered by 48 channels of true parallel flow, Vega delivers industry-leading throughput—12× higher than the leading 8-channel SPR platform —enabling rapid screening and kinetic characterization at scales never before possible. With the ability to screen greater than 20,000 analytes a day, Vega empowers discovery teams to move faster from ideas to insights.
A Complete Workflow From Screening to Deep Characterization
Built for the Modern Discovery Lab
- Engineered to support the full discovery pipeline from hit identification to lead optimization.
- Automation-ready system seamlessly integrates into Carterra’s ecosystem—including chips, consumables, software analytics, and robotics.
- Minimal user intervention with walk-away workflows that increase lab productivity.
You can integrate screening, kinetics, and advanced characterization into a single platform and gain rapid insights into affinity, specificity, epitope diversity, and mechanism of action—all in a fraction of the time of traditional systems.
Carterra’s unified workflow helps scientists quickly advance the most promising candidates, eliminate false positives, and de-risk programs early.
Available Vega Biosensor Chip Chemistries
Carterra Vega Sensor Chips
Selection of the appropriate sensor chip surface is essential for robust data quality when designing a high-throughput SPR assay. Carterra offers a broad range of chip surfaces to support the diverse applications available on Vega.
Expanding the Breadth of Applications
Our platforms offer a range of sensitivities and throughputs allowing the broadest range of applications and workflows.
- Measure weak mM affinities
- Rapid, target class/-omic level characterization
- AI/ML-based approaches needing large amounts of binding data to design and validate large language AI models
For those working with large molecules, Carterra offers:
- Samples with low concentrations, e.g., low yield supernatants
- Samples with avid interactions, e.g., antibody analytes
- Access lower density surfaces to minimize binding heterogeneity in biological systems
Fragment hit identification against 2 targets, human carbonic anhydrases hCAII and hCAXII, using the Carterra Vega™ platform.
Kinetic titration of hit compounds from screening against both carbonic anhydrases, validating the hits and demonstrating binding selectivity.
Unique Platform Technology
Vega’s throughput, flexibility, and applications are enabled by three core system modules:
1. Patented flow cell technology 2. High throughput SPR 3. Software
The Carterra VegaTM is covered by one or more of the following U.S. Patents: 8,210,119; 8,211,382; 8,383,059; 8,488,120; 8,999,726; 9,682,372; 9,682,396; 10,300,450
1. Introducing Carterra Vega – The Future of High-Throughput SPR
Drug discovery teams are under pressure to move faster, explore greater molecular diversity, and deliver higher-quality candidates. The Carterra Vega high-throughput SPR platform was engineered to meet these demands head-on. Vega merges unmatched throughput, unrivaled sensitivity, and automation-ready design into a single instrument that reshapes the limits of label-free characterization.
48 Channels of True Parallel Microfluidics
At the core of Vega is its 48-channel flow architecture—an engineering breakthrough that delivers twelve times the throughput of the leading 8-channel SPR platform. This level of parallelization enables researchers to screen and characterize compounds simultaneously, dramatically increasing the depth and speed of discovery campaigns.
Whether you’re running fragment screens, antibody kinetics, affinity ranking, or protein-protein interaction analyses, Vega accelerates every step while maintaining the data quality Carterra is known for.
High-Sensitivity Optics for Molecules Down to
100 Da
Vega employs advanced optical detection and precision thermal regulation to capture binding events with extraordinary sensitivity. By reliably measuring interactions as small as 100 Daltons, Vega expands SPR into chemical space previously relegated to orthogonal methods. This opens new opportunities in fragment-based drug discovery and small-molecule screening—without sacrificing throughput.
Multi-channel Flow Cell
The multi-channel flow cell enables parallel 48-channel screening and characterization, with two targets and a reference in each channel.
The sample deck adds another layer of throughput and flexibility.
96- or 384-well plates can be used in the Vega sample deck with 48-channel access in 3 bays and single flow cell access in 2 bays. The sample block has the capacity for 3 x 50ml conical tubes, 5 x 15ml conical tubes, and 8 x 1.5ml tubes.
Automated switching between the multi-channel flow cell and single channel flow cell cartridges.
2. High Throughput Surface Plasmon Resonance
A Complete Workflow From Screening to Deep Characterization
Vega integrates screening, kinetics, and advanced characterization into a single platform. With simultaneous data collection across 48 channels, researchers gain rapid insights into affinity, specificity, epitope diversity, and mechanism of action—all in a fraction of the time of traditional systems.
This unified workflow helps scientists quickly advance the most promising candidates, eliminate false positives, and de-risk programs early.
Scale Without Limits Through Automation
With Carterra’s plate loading robot, Vega can run a stack of microplates completely unattended. This walk-away capability translates to more experiments, higher content per run, and unprecedented operational efficiency. Labs can easily scale their screening capacity to meet growing pipeline demands while reducing bottlenecks and hands-on time.
Built for Discovery. Backed by Carterra.
Vega was designed to meet the demands of the world’s most innovative biopharma and biotech organizations. With Carterra’s global customer experience centers, robust consumables ecosystem, and proven expertise across 20/20 top pharma companies, Vega is supported by a team dedicated to your success.
3. Industry-leading Experimental Setup, Data Analysis, and Visualization Software
Navigator Software
Quickly and efficiently set up experiments using Navigator’s streamlined interface and purpose-built assay wizards. Fully automated experiments allow unparalleled throughput and real-time binding data richness.
Key Benefits:
- Reduce hands-on time: Set up even the most complex assay in fewer than 5 minutes
- Adapt to any sample type: Predefined assay routines for purified or crude samples
- Simplify assay prep: Straightforward volume estimation for all assay buffers and reagents
- Multi-task and plan efficiently: Accurate experimental time estimation and in-run progress
- Walk-away convenience: Standby flow option keeps your surface ready to use between experiments
- Maximize data per experiment: Generate thousands of interactions in a single, unattended run
Hands-on time is further reduced via automated data analysis, which enables rapid processing and initial curation of large experiments. Dedicated application-focused analysis software follows intuitive, simple-to-use workflows and powerful visualization tools.
Kinetics Analysis Software
Complete kinetic data processing and analysis can be automated, with referencing, zeroing, cropping, blank subtraction, and kinetic model fitting all executed as a single operation.
Learn More about our Kinetics Software
Epitope Analysis Software
In the binning tool, data are linked across panels to facilitate review of sensorgrams, heat maps, networks, and a dendrogram.
The ability to merge orthogonal data and view networks by color options provide a powerful and intuitive way of assessing your antibody panel’s diversity, while keeping an epitope-centric view.
The network plots above provide an alternate view of the data, where chords represent the blocking relationships, envelopes inscribe the bins, and colors depict merged data.
A binning dendrogram, showing an adjustable custom cut-height (red line at 4.1) next to a community plot that is clustered by the custom cut height, which provides a less granular view than the four network plots above where the cut height was zero.