SBIR Phase I: Microfluidic platform for high throughput drug screening using primary cells

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the current barrier to performing extensive drug screening on primary cells. Pharmaceutical researchers have long desired to screen drugs on primary cells because they are freshly obtained from human or animal tissue and are considered to have drug responses similar to cells in the human body. However, primary cell samples are highly limited in cell number, and conventional assay technology (based on microtiter plates) does not have the degree of miniaturization needed to reduce cell usage to levels that enable extensive drug screening. This project?s objective is to develop novel ultraminiaturized assays using microfluidics that will allow high throughput drug screening on primary cells and traditional cell lines. The broader/commercial impacts of this research are both immediate and long-term. Because primary cells are more biologically relevant than currently used cell lines, adoption of the technology by the pharmaceutical industry will improve their ability to identify drug candidates that are more likely to be effective in humans and hence successful in clinical trials. This can reduce the cost and risk associated with new drug development. Academic researchers can also benefit greatly from using the technology to characterize precious or difficult to culture cells, thus helping advance our scientific understanding of biology in the long term. Finally, the miniaturization will result in significant cost savings for academic and industrial clients stemming from reduced usage of expensive biochemical reagents.