Biolayer interferometry and its applications in drug discovery and development

Biolayer interferometry (BLI) is an optical ‘dip-and-read’ biosensor method for real-time, label-free analysis of biomolecular interactions. It can be used for kinetic analyses, analyte detection and quantitation with mid- to high throughput. Here, we review how BLI can support diverse activities in the broad field of drug design and development, ranging from fragment and compound library screening, structure-activity relationship and selectivity analyses of small-molecule drug leads, to cell line development for the production of biopharmaceutics, optimization and surveillance of bioprocess, and characterization and quality control of biologic drug substances. We discuss the strengths and drawbacks of BLI and compare it to other well-established methods and techniques. With advances in sensitivity, BLI has established itself as a robust and versatile tool for interrogating molecular interactions and structures, expanding from the world of biological molecules to small synthetic compounds.