I-Corps: Massively Parallel High-Resolution Optical Electrophysiology

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是潜在的开发一种系统，该系统可以为电生理学科学家提供更具成本效益和更易于使用的工具，并可能改进致密电产生细胞培养的特征。这项技术可能会让制药公司能够更好地了解细胞对新药的反应，并在临床试验期间提供更多知情的、数据驱动的决策。这项创新还可以为生物制造商提供更多关于细胞培养发展的信息，这可能会降低与失败的细胞培养相关的生产成本。此外，学术科学家可能会利用这项技术来表征大量神经群体中的信息传输，并可能在神经科学等领域揭示新的见解。这个i-Corps项目基于开发一种新的电生理学表型筛选和监测系统。该系统监测心肌细胞、神经元和其他细胞的电活动，以潜在比其他系统更高的空间分辨率、吞吐量和监测时间来表征它们的行为和健康。这可能会让药物开发和生物制品制造收集更多数据，并为其产品流水线开发更可靠的分析方法。目前监测细胞进行表型筛选的方法涉及使用微电极阵列，这种阵列在空间分辨率上可能受到限制，吞吐量相对较低，而且工业使用的成本可能更高。这项技术使用了一种新型的光学传感器，它将等离子体与电致变色相结合，可能创建一个无线、高分辨率和高通量的平台，用于长期监测电生理。这一平台可能会开发更便宜、更强大的分析方法，以及细胞种群中细胞健康和信息交换的全新特征。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 I-Corps project is the potential development of a system that could provide more cost-effective and easier-to-use tools for scientists in electrophysiology, and possibly allow the improved characterization of dense electrogenic cell cultures. The technology may allow pharmaceutical companies the ability to better understand how cells respond to new drugs and could provide more informed, data-driven decisions during clinical trials. This innovation could also provide biologic manufacturers with more information regarding the development of their cell cultures which may reduce production costs associated with failed cell cultures. In addition, academic scientists may utilize this technology to characterize information transfer in large neural populations and which may unlock new insights in fields such as neuroscience.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a novel system for phenotypic screening and monitoring in electrophysiology. The system monitors the electrical activity of cardiomyocytes, neurons, and other cells to characterize their behavior and health with potentially more spatial resolution, throughput, and monitoring time than other systems. This may allow drug development and biologics manufacturing to gather more data and develop more robust assays for their product pipelines. The current approach to monitoring cells for phenotypic screening involves the use of microelectrode arrays, which can be limited in spatial resolution, are comparatively low throughput, and may cost more for industries to utilize. This technology uses a novel optical sensor that combines plasmonics with electrochromics to possibly create a platform that would be wireless, high resolution, and high throughput for long-term monitoring of electrophysiology. This platform may enable the development of cheaper, more robust assays as well as entirely new characterizations of cell health and information exchange in cell populations.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.