BioTrove Announces Advanced Technology Program Award from N.I.S.T. for Massively Parallel Screening.

Business/Technology Editors & Health/Medical Writers

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BW HealthWire)--June 20, 2001

BioTrove, Inc. announced today that it has received a $1.99M Advanced Technology Program (ATP) award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The award will fund engineering efforts related to BioTrove's Living Chip(TM) technology platform for Massively Parallel Screening including optimization of chip production processes, development of associated detectors and robotics and demonstration of the chips' utility in screening phage display libraries of human single chain antibody fragments.

"We are pleased to be funded by NIST's prestigious Advanced Technology Program to develop the Living Chip(TM) technology. The ATP funding enables further development of our ultra-high throughput chemical and biochemical analysis platform to address widespread commercial applications in drug discovery, biotechnology and materials discovery," said Dr. Colin Brenan, C.E.O. and a co-founder of BioTrove.

"The Living Chip(TM) technology provides an elegant, powerful new approach to performing microscale chemistry and biology. This funding will accelerate the development of the chips, the associated robotics and the implementation of powerful, massively parallel biological screens, " continued Dr. Tanya Kanigan, Director of Chip Technology and a co-founder of BioTrove.

The Living Chip(TM) exploits micro-scale phenomenon to move, mix and separate small volumes of liquids. The number of samples that can be simultaneously processed with a single chip are orders of magnitude higher than competing technologies.

The Living Chip(TM) consists of a precisely constructed, high density arrays of micro-channels, or bottomless wells, in a plate. The Living Chip(TM) may be thought of as a dense array of test-tubes that are easily filled and washed. The system combines the advantages of high density arrays on glass slides, with the added functionality that liquids and gases may easily pass into and out of the channels. Living Chip(TM) systems will have 100,000 or more channels. Proprietary processes are used to treat the surfaces of the arrays to make the top and bottom faces hydrophobic and the channel interiors hydrophilic. Fluids may be instantaneously loaded into the chip by dipping and held there by means of surface tension. By aligning and stacking a second chip on top of the first one, mixing of reagents may be performed on a large number of samples simultaneously, thus accomplishing massively parallel initiation of reactions. Inhomogeneous assays may be performed by immobilizing compounds inside the channels and taking advantage of the flow-through nature of the Living Chip(TM). Reactions may be monitored in parallel by a variety of means including colorometric, fluorometric or luminescent readout.

The ATP funded research will culminate in a Massively Parallel Screening of single-chain human antibody display libraries. BioTrove will demonstrate the ability to screen display libraries after only one round of panning and with the goal of bypassing the panning process altogether. The Living Chip(TM) will allow screening of one million or more samples per day, thus accessing a greater diversity than previously possible. The repertoire of antibodies screened will exceed that produced by the human immune system. BioTrove also plans to screen for function of the antibodies rather than just for binding affinity, potentially leading to more valuable therapeutic antibodies.

There are many other applications for the Living Chip(TM) technology include Massively Parallel Screening for enzyme and cell-based drug screening assays and rapid, sensitive genomic and proteomic assays. Combinatorial biology libraries including industrial enzyme libraries are readily screened, with the goal of reaching one billion assays per day. Compound libraries or genetic libraries may easily be stored in the chips with the advantage of low reagent consumption and easy integration into Massively Parallel Screening.

About the Advanced Technology Program:

The Advanced Technology Program, managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, provides cost-shared funding to industry for high-risk R&D projects with the potential to spark important, broad-based economic benefits for the United States. The awards are made on the basis of a rigorous peer-reviewed selection process. For more information, consult the ATP web site, www.atp.nist.gov.

About BioTrove:

BioTrove, Inc. was founded in 1997 as Advanced Instrumentation Systems, L.L.C.. BioTrove has two core technology platforms: the Living Chip(TM), exclusively licensed from M.I.T., and a second microfluidic high-throughput screening platform under development with a corporate partner. The BioTrove team includes engineers within the disciplines of mechanical, chemical, software, biomedical and optical engineering and scientists with expertise in diversity biology, enzymology, toxicology, analytical chemistry, materials and surface science. BioTrove offers both screening services based on the core technology as well as advanced instrumentation to corporate partners. BioTrove's mid-term goal is to provide a solution to screening at rates approaching one billion samples per day in nanoliter volumes. For more information visit BioTrove's website at http://www.biotrove.com .