Cell & Enzyme Screening

Functional FACS

Cancer & Residual Disease Diagnosis

Antibody Engineering

Drug Formulation

Industrial Enzyme Development

Therapeutic Enzyme Development

On-chip Synthesis & Screening

RNAi Screening

Ethanol Development

 

Cell & Enzyme Screening
PLS

RainDance Technologies (RDT) has combined droplet technology with microfluidics to enable a large number of analytical reactions (>105/min) to take place using extremely low volumes of drugs or reagents in microscopic NanoReactors™.   The Professional Laboratory System™ (PLS) is an automated, compact fluid handling platform that enables the creation of protocols directed at screening cells and enzymes against large libraries of reagents.  RDT works with strategic partners to accelerate development of this application based on the specific interests of its collaborators.

PLS Benefits

RDT’s NanoReactor™ screening technology provides cost effective, ultra-high throughput screening by delivering small molecular entities in picoliter size droplets that eliminate the need for microtiter plates. Since RDT’s NanoReactor™ technology significantly improves the efficiency of high throughput sample processing, matrix screening, or the testing of different libraries against each other, becomes feasible for both enzyme and cell based screening.  For example, two or more drug libraries can be simultaneously tested in all dose ratios to monitor their combined effect on a target or library of targets.

  • Test multiple conditions such as pH, conductivity, salt concentration, temperature and light
  • Droplet encapsulation of microbes allows screening for secreted target enzymes
  • Cells can be lysed within droplets to investigate full array of cellular material
  • Unique carrier oil allows for the encapsulation and growth of viable cells
  • Precise microdroplet sizing increases reagent concentrations to accelerate assay reactions
  • Picoliter size droplets significantly reduce reagent usage
PLS Features
Chips for cell and enzyme screening are configured using fluid management modules that control the continuous flow of thousands of individual NanoReactors™ per second.
  • Sample Loading -- The loading module injects one or multiple emulsified libraries of drugs into the chip to be combined and mixed with cell or enzyme targets in individual NanoReactors™
  • On-chip Incubation -- NanoReactors™ are incubated on-chip under controlled conditions for precise intervals that can range from less than a second to hours.
  • Optical Readouts -- A variety of optical detection methods including fluorescence detection, fluorescence polarization, and light scattering can be used to screen and sort the NanoReactors™
  • Real Time Statistics -- All microdroplets are volumetrically identical, stable, and can be tagged using a proprietary liquid labeling technique, allowing for quantitative experiments and online statistical analysis.

Cell & Enzyme Screening Schematic

Chip architecture for cell and enzyme screening