Dolomite’s microfluidics technology helping to advance antibody therapeutics
Posted: 13 January 2015 |
Dolomite’s droplet generation system is helping AbVitro to identify potential therapeutic targets using its AbPair™ technology…
Dr Adrian Briggs, Director of Molecular Biology R&D at AbVitro
Dr Adrian Briggs, Director of Molecular Biology R&D at AbVitro
Dolomite’s droplet generation system is helping AbVitro to identify potential therapeutic targets using its AbPair™ technology. Dr Adrian Briggs, Director of Molecular Biology R&D at AbVitro, commented: “Our aim is to develop new potential targets and therapies for a wide range of diseases, taking advantage of the specificity and sensitivity of the human immune system. To identify complete functional antibodies – pairing the correct heavy and light chains – we use a molecular barcoding technique that requires isolation of individual B or T cells. Achieving this with a flow sorter and microplate format is extremely slow and laborious, and so we looked for a reliable microfluidics solution that would enable much higher throughput.”
“We investigated the various systems available, and Dolomite seemed to be the most highly engineered, optimized and mature technology. Very precise control of pressure is crucial to reproducible, reliable droplet formation, and Dolomite offers high quality pumps, flow sensors and microfluidics chips, all fully automated via the Company’s software.”
“Since its introduction, the system has been in use almost constantly, and we have been very happy with the performance. The system’s quartz chip, in particular, is very robust and long-lasting – we have been using the same chips since we first started – and the computer-controlled Mitos P-Pumps with flow sensors offer outstanding reproducibility. Using this set-up, we can process in excess of a million cells per experiment, allowing us to obtain over 300,000 full-length, natively-paired antibodies from a single sample. This kind of throughput would be impossible with traditional methods, as the cost and time required would be prohibitive, as well as having a poor success rate. Having a robust emulsion hardware solution has saved us significant research and development time, allowing us to proceed to product development and partnerships in studies of human disease sooner.”
For more information, visit www.dolomite-microfluidics.com.
