SBIR Phase I: A High Throughput Microfluidics Platform to Measure Secretion from Single Cells

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发单细胞分析技术，以洞察细胞机制，这有可能改变药物开发和制造。单细胞分析或破译细胞间异质性的能力是生物技术和临床应用中的一个限制因素。该项目旨在进一步开发一种用于综合单细胞分析的变革性平台技术，能够用当前最先进的技术应对现有的挑战。该平台可能会改变药物开发和制造的范式，使新的治疗化合物能够快速迭代和评估。这种方法可以显著减少将新药推向市场的时间和成本，并降低治疗患者的整体成本，这是一项实质性的社会效益。除了这个初步的应用，这个单细胞分析平台可以成为一个易于实施的研究工具，增强我们对生物学的基本理解，促进细胞功能的工程，以及评估新药和治疗的安全性和有效性。这个SBIR第一阶段项目建议为集成的单细胞分析开发一个强大且具有成本效益的商业原型技术平台。该平台技术的一个关键特征是在测量单个细胞的定量分泌分子方面具有前所未有的灵敏度。这是通过以极小的体积培养单个细胞，并在这些微型生物反应器中实现前所未有的规模的分析来实现的。拟议的工作将导致开发消耗性原型微流控芯片，使该平台能够快速和资源高效地适应市场。建议的原型将通过相关研究进行验证，以满足细胞系开发中确认的市场需求。这一原型的商业改编可能会在单细胞水平上提供对生物和生理过程的深入洞察，并改变药物开发和制造、治疗治疗以及临床诊断。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to develop single cell analysis technology to provide insight into cellular mechanisms, which has the potential to transform drug development and manufacturing. Single-cell analysis, or the ability to decipher cell-to-cell heterogeneity, is a limiting factor in biotechnology and clinical applications. This project aims to further develop a transformative platform technology for integrated single-cell analysis capable of addressing existing challenges with the current state-of-the-art. The platform will potentially shift the paradigm of drug development and manufacturing, enabling quick iteration and evaluation of new therapeutic compounds. This approach could significantly reduce the time and cost to bring new drugs to market and reduce the overall cost of treating patients, which is a substantial benefit to society. Beyond this initial application, this single-cell analysis platform could become a readily implemented research tool, enhancing our basic understanding of biology, facilitate engineering of cell function, as well as evaluating safety and efficacy of new drugs and treatments.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a robust and cost effective commercial prototype technology platform for integrated single-cell analysis. A key feature of the platform technology is the unprecedented sensitivity in measuring quantitatively secreted molecules from single cells. This is achieved by incubating single cells in extremely small volumes, and enabling analytics on an unprecedented scale in these microscopic bioreactors. The proposed work will lead to the development of a consumable prototype microfluidic chip, enabling quick and resource efficient adaptation of the platform to the marketplace. The proposed prototype will be validated through relevant studies, addressing a confirmed market need in cell line development. Commercial adaptation of this prototype will potentially provide deep insight into biological and physiological processes on a single-cell level, and transform drug development and manufacturing, therapeutic treatment, as well as clinical diagnostics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.