Gel Microdrop System from One Cell Systems can ferret out rare protein secreting cells
Imagine, if you will, a single cell suspended in a drop. Now picture that same cell secreting a protein, say an immunoglobulin. Now envision that secreting cell embedded in a matrix that binds the protein as it leaves the cell, and you have the idea of the microdrop hybridoma selection system available from One Cell Systems. A modification of the microdrop technology described in 1991 by James Weaver, Associate Director of the Biomedical Engineering Center, Harvard/MIT, this technique can save weeks of time and tedium in the isolation and stabilization of protein-secreting cells. While microdrops are not a totally new idea, the development of a technology for making small, uniform droplets from a porous material--uniformity is one of the keys to the success of the microdrop assay--combined with a "capture web" of affinity-tagged agarose, it has ...
