IMTEK is principal technology partner and project coordinator of PASCA: Platform for Advanced Single Cell Manipulation and Analysis, which aims to develop automated technology for encapsulating individual living cell in micro-droplets, allowing them to be manipulated and studied.
Currently, there is no effective way of isolating and systematically analysing live cells. They are commonly manipulated as an unordered, unsorted, heterogeneous collection of cells. This limits the depth of perspective that can be attained using single cell analysis methods, compromising studies of how cells interact with each other, and on the behaviour of a single cell type in a mixed cell or tissue system.
Microsystems technology provides techniques and processes to separate and isolate cells, for example, by using sensor-controlled microchannels. This draws on technologies similar to ink-jet printing to print cells on substrates in confined microdroplets.
The basic feasibility of the method has been demonstrated experimentally. Now PASCA, which involves seven partners, will develop prototypes. The project partners are Sophion Bioscience A/S (Denmark), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), Primadiag SAS (France), BioFluidix GmbH (Germany), Zurich Instruments AG (Switzerland) and INNOPROT (Spain).
For more information, visit: http://www.pasca.eu
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