The fact that cellular ion channels are effective drug targets, coupled with the laboriousness of traditional patch clamp techniques, has created a need for hi-throughput electrophysiology platforms. Patch clamp based drug screening technology has been recently implemented by using microfabricated patch clamp designs that replace the traditional patch pipette with a pore in a silicon substrate. While successful at high-throughput measurements of channel activity, current devices have yet to achieve high densities of patched cells per unit volume and rely on robotically operated pipettes for reagent and cell delivery. Our aims are to develop a microfluidic based patch clamp device that features high density arrays for automated, high-throughput electrophysiology.
Project end date: 02/07/06