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Ohio State University Researchers Adopt IonFlux 16 Automated Patch Clamp System

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Fluxion Biosciences, Inc. announced that the Ohio State University Department of Pharmacology has purchased the IonFlux 16, the first high throughput automated patch clamp instrument of its kind geared towards the academic researcher.

The IonFlux instrument will enable large scale pharmacology experiments on this group’s nAChR targets, which previously were not feasible using a manual patch clamp rig.

“We’re very excited to begin work with the IonFlux 16,” said Dr. Rene Anand, Ph.D., Professor in the Department

of Pharmacology at Ohio State University. “Our lab has been very interested in collecting electrophysiological data

on the nAChR target, but manual patch rigs were too slow and required a long learning curve. The other automated systems were priced well beyond our research lab budget. The IonFlux 16 will provide our lab with high experimental throughput, is simple to operate, and comes at the right price point for our research studies.”

The application flexibility, ease of use, and scalability of the IonFlux 16 facilitates a wide range of ion channel investigations. The system fully automates the patch clamp process and eliminates the technical skill and time associated with the manual patch clamp technique.

“We are absolutely delighted that Dr. Anand’s group at Ohio State has elected to advance their ligand gated ion channel studies using the IonFlux 16,” said Steve Smith, Ph.D., Director of IonFlux Sales. “This purchase reflects the increased focus of academic investigators on obtaining high quality, high throughput electrophysiology data. It validates the role that IonFlux 16 will play when pharmacology and other large scale studies are necessary but not practical on a manual setup.”

The IonFlux 16 utilizes Fluxion’s Well Plate Microfluidic™ technology to automate the patch clamp process. The system performs 16 voltage-clamp recordings in parallel and features fast perfusion of up to 8 compounds per cell ensemble for a total of 128 data points per 96-well plate.

The use of ensemble recording improves consistency and success rates to enable the systematic study of ion channel mutations and compound libraries. These studies have previously been out of reach for most academic investigators due to the low throughput of manual patch rigs and high cost of conventional automated instruments.