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

Ethanol Development
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 powerful new protocols for optimizing the ethanol development process. RDT works with strategic partners to accelerate development of this application based on the specific interests of its collaborators.

PLS Benefits

RDT’s NanoReactor™ technology improves the efficiency of high throughput screening for a large variety of ethanol development screens and delivers abundant and reliable data whether DNA elements, bacteria, yeast, or other host organisms are used. NanoReactor™ technology is capable of significantly improving many aspects of the ethanol production process, including but not limited to: enzymes for starch or biomass degradation, fermentation microbes, antimicrobials for treating plant process infections and proteases and other additives that increase ethanol yield.

  • Test multiple conditions such as pH, C/N ratio, salt and substrate concentration, temperature
  • Droplet encapsulation of microbes allows screening for secreted target enzymes
  • 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
  • Matrix screening allows for libraries of enzyme leads to be expressed in libraries of microbe leads which are incubated in an array of precisely varied environmental conditions

 

PLS Features
Chips for ethanol development are configured using fluid management modules that control the continuous flow of thousands of individual NanoReactors™ per second.
  • Sample Loading -- The loading module mixes engineered microbe libraries with DNA libraries coding for lead enzymes to generate droplets in which there is an average of ≤ 1 microbe per droplet.
  • Off-chip Incubation -- For long incubations, microdroplets are stored off-chip and easily reloaded without leakage or cross-contamination due to proprietary surfactants and neutral charged droplets.
  • 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™

Ethanol Development Schematic

Chip architecture for ethanol development