Press Release: Fluxion Biosciences and FORMULATRIX® Announce Partnership to Increase Efficiency in Automated Patch Clamp Workflows
Press Release: Fluxion Biosciences and FORMULATRIX® Announce Partnership to Increase Efficiency in Automated Patch Clamp Workflows
BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS – April 7, 2017 – Fluxion Biosciences, INC and FORMULATRIX® have announced a partnership to provide electrophysiologists with an efficient and cost-effective workflow for high-throughput patch clamp studies. Fluxion has begun promoting the MANTIS® Liquid Handler, designed and manufactured by FORMULATRIX, as an accessory that further enhances the flexibility and data quality associated with their IonFlux Mercury Automated Patch Clamp System. By adopting this non-contact microfluidic liquid handler to load cells and reagents onto proprietary IonFlux plates, laboratories can more efficiently screen hundreds of compounds per week to examine drug pharmacology on various ion channel drug targets.
This collaboration occurred as a result of an introduction by Chris Daley, a senior scientist at Merck who benefits considerably from a consumable-free alternative to traditional manual and automated liquid handling products when preparing IonFlux plates for analysis. “By implementing the Mantis, we reduced the time to prepare each assay plate from nearly 25 minutes, to under 5 minutes. The longer process required manual picking of tips from tip boxes to format them for adaptation to the IonFlux plate format; implementing the MANTIS eliminated this laborious process. The MANTIS has proven to be a cost-effective method for preparing plates for this assay: in addition to the time savings, we save a significant amount of money on each plate by eliminating the use of tips completely.” Chris explained.
Although time and money are limiting factors for throughput in screening applications, Fluxion hopes to offer additional benefits to their customers through this new agreement with FORMULATRIX. “Not only does liquid handling automation make loading IonFlux plates quick and easy” explained Dr. Ali Yehia, VP IonFlux Products at Fluxion “the MANTIS also increases the reproducibility of assays and allows researchers to focus on tasks in the lab that offer a higher value than plate preparation, like analyzing data or designing their next series of experiments.”
About Fluxion Biosciences
Fluxion Biosciences manufactures the IonFlux™ automated patch clamp system for ion channel drug discovery. The system deploys a unique in-plate cell attachment, recording and drug delivery system that provides rapid parallel recordings for ligand- and voltage-gated channels and facilitates complicated drug screening assays. Premier institutions globally use Fluxion’s pioneering platforms, including the IsoFlux liquid biopsy system and the BioFlux cell analysis system in various disease research areas, including cancer, microbiology, and immunology.
About FORMULATRIX:
FORMULATRIX was established in 2002 to provide protein crystallization automation solutions. Since then, we've started developing the next generation of liquid handlers using microfluidic technology. Headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, we supply software and robotic automation solutions to leading pharmaceutical companies and academic research institutions around the world. Our team works tirelessly to provide the best products in the industry with support that is second to none.
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FORMULATRIX, INC
Fluxion Biosciences, INC
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