All this high-tech gadgetry is designed for essentially one reason--to help drug companies enhance both the speed and efficiency of early drug screening procedures to minimize time spent chasing red herrings, the better to get the next blockbuster drug to market faster. When it comes to high-throughput screening, the microplate format--including 96-, 384-, and 1,536-well plates--dominates the field. But now BioTrove Inc.(www.biotrove.com) and Diversa Corp. (www.diversa.com) have upped the ante by 10- to 100-fold, leaving the 1,536-well plate far behind.
BioTrove president and CEO Colin Brenan described the company's new Living Chip™ technology at the DDT Cutting Edge Technologies symposium. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company's Living Chips are stackable, containing up to 10,000 50-nanoliter hydrophilic wells bored entirely through the plate; the plate surface itself is hydrophobic to prevent cross-contamination. Samples can be applied to the entire plate by dunking in a solution. Alternatively, by stacking a number of Living Chips ...
