Agrochemical Discovery Services for Next-Generation Crop Protection
Accelerating innovation in crop protection
The agricultural sector faces increasing pressure to improve crop productivity while reducing environmental impact. Rising pesticide resistance, evolving regulatory requirements, and the demand for sustainable farming practices are driving the search for novel modes of action and safer crop protection solutions.
Axxam supports this effort with integrated discovery services designed to accelerate agrochemical innovation. Combining advanced assay development technologies and screening expertise, we help our clients validate emerging biological targets and identify novel crop protection agents.
Through integrated integrated high-throughput screening and early safety assessment strategies, including toxicity prediction and in vitro safety profiling from the earliest stages of research, and with the support of AI-enabled discovery approaches, we help reduce development risks, shorten timelines, and support the creation of more sustainable solutions for agriculture.
Deep expertise in ion channels, GPCRs and other challenging membrane proteins
Why Axxam for agrochemical discovery?
Discovering next-generation crop protection products requires robust biological models, predictive assays, and scalable screening technologies. Axxam combines decades of experience in assay development, high-throughput screening, and translational biology with advanced discovery platforms adapted to the specific needs of agrochemical research.
Our capabilities include:
Axxam has extensive experience developing functional assays for classical and emerging insecticide targets, including nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), voltage-gated sodium, potassium and calcium channels, GABA-gated chloride channels, ryanodine receptors, TRP channels, insect GPCRs, chitin synthesis pathways.
Discovery technologies for crop protection
Target identification and validation
The search for novel insecticides increasingly focuses on new biological targets and innovative mechanisms of action capable of overcoming resistance. Axxam supports crop protection research through target identification and validation activities designed to improve confidence in emerging targets and generate the biological evidence needed to guide discovery programs.
Our AI-enabled target identification capabilities complement these activities by integrating multi-omics and biological data to prioritize promising targets before experimental validation, helping reduce early-stage discovery risk.
Using molecular biology, genome editing, functional pharmacology, and tailored cellular models, we investigate target function, characterize target variants, and develop assays that translate biological hypotheses into screening-ready systems.
Custom assay development
Understanding the biological activity of potential crop protection compounds requires physiologically relevant experimental models for different species. Axxam designs and validates customized cellular systems, including stable and transient expression platforms, genome-edited and reporter mammalian and insect cell lines, and physiologically relevant induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived models.
These models can be coupled with fluorescence-, luminescence-, and imaging-based readouts to generate high-quality data suitable for both target-based and phenotypic screening campaigns.
Technology highlights
Electrophysiology
Axxam is internationally recognized for its expertise in electrophysiology and ion channel biology.
Our platforms include:
- Automated patch-clamp
- Manual patch-clamp
- Multi-electrode arrays (MEA)
- Organellar electrophysiology
- Optogenetics-enabled assays
These technologies enable precise characterization of insect ion channels and support the discovery of highly selective crop protection compounds.
Phenotypic screening
When target biology is not fully understood, phenotypic screening can reveal novel mechanisms and bioactive compounds.
Our capabilities include:
- High-content screening
- Image-based profiling
- Cell Painting
- Multiparametric biological analysis
High-throughput screening campaigns
Axxam conducts high-throughput screening campaigns ranging from pilot studies to large-scale screening programs designed to identify novel bioactive compounds for crop protection applications. Depending on the biological target and project objectives, discovery campaigns can combine virtual screening and AI-assisted compound prioritization with experimental approaches such as optical and gene-expression-based assays, high-content imaging, electrophysiology platforms, affinity-selection mass spectrometry, and DNA-encoded library screening through trusted partners.
Axxam provides a broad range of screening libraries designed to maximize hit identification opportunities across a variety of crop protection targets. Our collections include proprietary synthetic small molecules, focused libraries for specific target classes, and highly diverse discovery sets covering extensive chemical space. To support the growing interest in sustainable agriculture and biologically derived crop protection products, Axxam also offers access to one of the industry’s largest collections of natural products, microbial extracts, purified fractions, and microbial strains.
Technology highlights
Natural products and biopesticide discovery
Natural products remain one of the most productive sources of novel crop protection agents.
Axxam provides access to extensive discovery resources including:
- Thousands of purified natural compounds
- Advanced microbial and plant extracts
- Fractionated natural product collections
- A large microbial strain collection for bioprospecting initiatives
These resources support the identification of new biopesticides and bioactive compounds with innovative mechanisms of action.
In vitro safety profiling and toxicology studies
Early identification of safety liabilities can significantly reduce development timelines and costs.
Axxam offers comprehensive safety profiling services including:
- Cytotoxicity and mitochondrial toxicity studies
- Oxidative stress assessment
- Genotoxicity biomarkers
- Transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic profiling
- Cell Painting-based toxicological assessment
Our early-stage screening strategies help prioritize compounds with the highest probability of success while supporting regulatory and sustainability objectives.
Chemosensory receptor platforms
Chemosensory receptors play a critical role in how insects perceive and respond to their environment, regulating behaviors such as feeding, host seeking, mating, and avoidance. Leveraging the AXXSense platform and our expertise in receptor biology, Axxam supports the discovery of innovative crop protection solutions based on the modulation of sensory pathways.
Our expertise enables the development of discovery strategies targeting:
- Feeding deterrent discovery through insect gustatory (GRs) and ionotropic receptors, enabling the identification of compounds that discourage feeding while potentially exerting lower resistance pressure than conventional neurotoxic insecticides.
- TRP channel biology, including TRPA1 and TRPV1 receptors, to identify repellents and behavioral modulators that affect insect perception and temperature sensing.
- Olfactory receptor modulation through high-throughput screening of insect odorant receptors to support host-seeking disruption, mating interference, and attract-and-kill strategies.
By targeting insect behavior rather than survival alone, these approaches provide complementary opportunities for the development of next-generation crop protection solutions with differentiated mechanisms of action.
Supporting sustainable agriculture
Modern crop protection requires solutions that are both effective and environmentally responsible.
Axxam supports the discovery of compounds designed to:
- Address pesticide resistance
- Improve crop productivity
- Enhance target selectivity
- Reduce off-target effects
- Support sustainable agricultural practices
- Enable the development of safer and greener crop protection products
By combining deep biological expertise, advanced discovery technologies, and unique biological and chemical resources, Axxam helps transform innovative ideas into next-generation crop protection solutions.