STTR Phase I: The BaroFuse, a Microfluidic Multichannel Measurement of Tissue Oxygen Consumption For Drug Testing

该SBIR一期项目旨在提供技术，以解决开发有效和安全药物的高成本问题。将新药推向市场通常需要筛选100个？利用细胞、组织和动物模型对数千种化合物进行药效和毒性测试，最终选择一种先导化合物进行临床试验。这个过程可能需要数年时间，数十亿美元，在最糟糕的情况下，由于安全问题，导致化合物在临床试验中失败。微流体和3d打印技术的进步使得组织培养装置的构建具有几乎无限数量的组织室和流动通道的复杂性。结合具有前所未有灵敏度的光学传感器，可以建立仪器来维持大量活检组织样本，同时评估组织暴露于药物库的影响。该技术平台以高灵敏度解决了药物对人体组织的影响，从而降低了动物试验的成本和将有毒药物带入临床试验和市场的风险。此外，这项技术将影响个性化医疗领域，在那里药物可以在个人身上进行测试。自身肿瘤或组织，以及环境健康。在昂贵的体内动物和临床试验之前，测量体外细胞对药物化合物的反应对于确定候选药物的毒性作用至关重要。为了满足这一需求，实时维护和评估活检组织的仪器正在开发中。该技术利用微流体优化维持组织活力和功能，光电子技术以前所未有的灵敏度测量摄氧量。流体由气体压力驱动，避免了笨重的泵的需要，通道是通过3D打印制造的，允许几乎无限数量的腔室和流动通道的复杂性。该技术平台将有助于临床试验先导化合物的选择，首次人体试验剂量的估计，并支持向FDA申请。在第一阶段的SBIR提案中，我们将为合同研究项目和制药公司的beta测试建造2台96通道交钥匙仪器。低容量（8通道）系统的功能先前已被证明。这笔资金将用于支持扩大该系统的吞吐量以及启用其他操作模式。该仪器将用于合同研究和直接销售到制药行业的药物发现大市场。

This SBIR Phase 1 project is aimed at providing technology to address the high costs of developing effective and safe drugs. Bringing a new drug to market typically involves screening 100?s of thousands of compounds for efficacy and toxicity utilizing cell, tissue and animal models to ultimately select a lead compound that will be tested in clinical trials. This process can take years, billions of dollars, and in the worse case leads to compounds that fail during clinical trials due to safety concerns. Advances in microfluidics and 3D-printing have enabled the construction of tissue culture devices with nearly unlimited numbers of tissue chambers and flow channel complexity. Combined with optical sensors with unprecedented sensitivity, instrumentation can be built that maintain large numbers of biopsied tissue samples, while assessing the effects of exposure of the tissue to libraries of drugs. This technological platform provides resolution of drug effects on human tissue with high sensitivity thereby reducing the cost of animal testing and the risk of bringing toxic drugs to clinical trials and the market. In addition, the technology will impact the fields of personalized medicine, where drugs could be tested on an individual?s own tumor or tissue, and environmental health. Measuring in vitro cellular responses to pharmaceutical compounds is critical for identifying toxic effects of candidate drugs prior to costly in vivo animal and clinical testing. To address this need, instrumentation to maintain and assess biopsied tissue in real time is being developed. The technology utilizes microfluidics for optimal maintenance of tissue viability and function, and optoelectronics to measure oxygen uptake with unprecedented sensitivity. The fluidics are driven by gas pressure, circumventing the need for unwieldy pumps, and the channels are fabricated by 3D printing, allowing for nearly unlimited numbers of chambers and flow channel complexity. The technological platform will aid in the selection of lead compounds for clinical trials, estimation of doses for first-in-human tests, and support applications to the FDA. In this Phase 1 SBIR proposal we will build 2 96-channel turnkey instruments for a contract research program and for beta testing by pharmaceutical companies. The functionality of a low-capacity (8-channel) system has been previously demonstrated. The funding will support scaling up the throughput of the system as well as enabling additional modes of operation. The instrumentation will be used for contract research and for direct sales to the large market of drug discovery within the pharmaceutical industry.