A user-friendly microfluidic chip for anti-epileptogenic drug screening

New pharmacological treatments for epilepsy will be discovered through the development of new screening platforms that are rapidreliableand can identify novel disease modifying therapiesor anti epileptogenic treatmentsXona MicrofluidicLLCXonais in a unique position to provide such screening tools and services for epilepsy researchXona focuses on the development of microfluidic platforms for neuron cell culture and provides devices that allow compartmentalization and fluidic isolation of axons and or dendritesand somataWe have patented technology and have sold devices to hundreds of labs world wideincluding many pharmaceutical laboratoriesEpileptogenesis induces an imbalance in inhibitory excitatory circuits within the brainleading to hyper excitability and seizuresA common cause of epilepsy is brain damage due to traumatic brain injury or strokeoften involving pyramidal cells within the hippocampusOur academic partners at UNC recently demonstrated the reliable induction of hyper excitability in pyramidal cells using a standard neuron deviceSNDconfiguration microfluidic chamber in response to axotomyNagendran et alNature CommunicationsThis hyper excitabilitywhich involves an imbalance of excitation and inhibitiondevelops reliably and with a delayat two days after axotomyIn separate NIH fundingwe dramatically improved the manufacturability of our platform leading to fully assembledmore robust devicesHere we will develop a new platform optimized for screening anti epileptogenic compounds to provide a much needed screening service to researchers as well as current and future pharmaceutical customersAimfocuses on developing a new injection moldable platform optimized to increase axon damage in a multi well formatAimwill lead to the development of an immunoassay to rapidly measure inhibitory excitatory balance within this microfluidic screening platform PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCEThis project will provide an important resource for the development of more effective epilepsy treatmentsKnowledge gained from this project has the potential to improve therapies and recovery outcomes for epilepsy