GHP November 2017 - Texas A&M

22 GHP / November 2017 , 1708BU02 New Revolutionary Tools for Pharma and Medical Researchers Ready to Go Further Cytosurge was founded in 2009, and has invested considerable time andmoney to turn a laboratory idea into a commercially viable technology. We profiled the firm in order to find out what clients can expect whenworking with the company. Cytosurge manufactures and distributes patented hollow FluidFM ® nanopipettes and nanosyringes with apertures ranging from a few microns to 300 nanometres, as well as the associated equipment for its implementation. To put that into perspective, 300 nm is approximately 200 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair! The company is a Swiss-based SME, consisting of around 20 employees, although this number is fast increasing at the rate of one person per month since the beginning of 2017. With a solid entrepreneurial financial backing, along with its well- known Swiss high-precision, the company is set to take on the rapidly expanding order book, as the fame and reputation of the patented FluidFM technology spreads across research laboratories all over the globe. The company is already successful in several key markets with close to 50 systems already in use throughout Europe, Asia and the United States, and with high hopes of obtaining the first installations on the African and Australian continents before the end of the year. For many years, Pharma and Medical researchers have been studying phenomena at the limit of current technology. For example, the targeted introduction of drugs into pre- selected, individual cells, or the extraction cell content for downstream analysis. These pioneer research topics brought with them a number of additional questions such as “How can I introduce a precise volume of a drug in a single cell in a fast and reliable way?”, “How much of a drug do I need in a cell for it to be active?” or “How can I identify what changes occur in a single cell after introduction of a drug?” These questions can now be answered using FluidFM technology. FluidFM nanosyringes are filled with a fluid, to which positive or negative pressure can be applied through the company’s specially designed Pressure Controller. In this way, measurable sub- picolitre volumes can be injected into or extracted from the nucleoplasm, and cytoplasm of single living cells allowing cellular heterogeneity to be assessed without killing the cells. Single cell isolation and manipulation is also possible using FluidFM nanopipettes. The complete FluidFM BOT system is entirely designed in-house by the company’s engineers, and managed by a specific user-friendly software, allowing researchers to perform repeated single cell manipulations and analysis of up to 100 cells per hour. The exceptional combination of accuracy, precision, repeatability and speed is made possible by the BOT. A further advantage of FluidFM is that it can be used for a variety of other applications, such as single cell and bacteria adhesion, nanolithography, spotting, colloidal spectroscopy and other Bioscience and Biophysical applications. The patented FluidFM probes (nanopipettes and nanosyringes) can also be used on Cytosurge’s cost-effective range of ADD-ON kits which fit many major atomic force microscopes. Alongside having been awarded several prizes for innovation, the firm is part of a number of prestigious partnerships with some of the top universities in the world, in particular ETH Zurich where the technology was born. FluidFM technology has entered the industrial arena through a first collaboration with a world-leading Pharmaceutical company. Additionally, the FluidFM probes can be filled with electroplating solutions. When a minute pressure and an electrical voltage are applied, it is possible to build solid metal 3D micro- structures of virtually any shape. Once again, Cytosurge is entering uncharted territories. The award-winning FluidFM 3Dprinter prints the smallest solid metal structures of any 3D printer to date – and it does it at room temperature. FluidFM has contributed to many research projects, some