Commercializing the Cell Culture Revolution

Last year we told you about Dr. Aaron Wheeler’s microfluidic cell culture system which utilizes electrical current to move cells across various surfaces through a process known as electrowetting. (See Cell Culture Revolution for more on that story including and interview with Dr. Wheeler and a video on the process itself.)

As a follow up to that story, last week, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR)
announced that it will invest in the commercialization of the Smart Well Plate™ which is based on Dr. Wheeler’s microfluidic system. According to the press release, traditional microfluidics used in high-throughput screening (HTS) is limited by the complexity of
controlling the reagents simultaneously in interconnected channels. Dr. Wheeler’s Smart Well Plate™ will help reduce the number of cells and amount of reagents necessary for performing HTS allowing the process to be conducted faster, cheaper and more reliably.

Dr. Wheeler is a co-investigator with internationally recognized analytical chemist and renowned cancer expert Dr. Jeff Wrana, Senior Investigator at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto on the Smart Well Plate project.

For more information clink Smart Well-Plate™ Ushers in New Paradigm
for High-Throughput Screening Technology