NANODROP · Development of instantaneous low volume drop measurement device
FP6 — Marie Curie Actions (Human Resources and Mobility)
- Duration
- 2005-02-01 → 2009-01-31
- EU contribution
- €604,135
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- TOK
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Results in brief
Final Activity Report Summary - NANODROP (Development of instantaneous low volume drop measurement device)
The intellectual property that the project sought to exploit was related to a device which could measure in a non-contact manner the volume of a droplet dispensed in real time. There was a significant drive within the high throughput drug discovery, genomic and proteomic areas for this type of device. The need for this product stemmed from the high throughput nature of a large scale life science research laboratory. A good example was the drug discovery process. In this process a drug was identified by scanning a library of drug candidates, consisting of typically over one million compounds, against a known disease target. This screening process required many millions of liquid handling steps prior to the drug target being narrowed down to a small percentage of potential drug candidates. By the time of the project elaboration there was no commercially available product to verify the volume of fluid which was added at any given step during the screening process. As there were millions of liquid handling steps, any error was not noticed upfront and this could cause a significant number of false positives and errors in the screening process, e.g. more than 10 %. The impact of an instant volume delivered measuring device was that these errors could be determined upfront and removed. This step had the potential to significantly decrease the number of erroneous drug candidates and to remove them downstream of the expensive and long post-screening research and development and clinical trial programmes. This should assist in reducing the overall drug development cycle and drug development cost. Other industries which would greatly benefit included the clinical diagnostics area, in particular in relation to point of devices. The provision of a product which could provide an instant validation of the reliability of the volumes of any assay would be very valuable in this sector.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Deerac Fluidics' is a leading developer and supplier of nanolitre and microlitre liquid handling instrumentation, which is used in RTD laboratories in the drug discovery, genomic and proteomic sectors. Deerac Fluidics' wishes to use the Marie Curie scheme a s a means to transfer additional skill sets into our organization - in particular expertise in electronic engineering, software, product development and molecular biology. Using these new skills we wish to develop a new platform technology, which would compliment our existing product range.The new platform technology is based on existing intellectual property owned by Deerac Fluidics' and relates to a technology, which can measure in a non-contact manner the volume of a droplet dispensed in real time. Currently there is a significant drive within the high throughput drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, genomic and proteomic sectors for a product of this type as it will allow instant validation of scientific results and will remove the errors, which can cause a significant number of false positives and errors in the screening process. This development would assist in reducing the overall drug development cycle and drug development cost, providing our ageing society with a larger number of beneficial drugs, which have been developed at lower costs.Deerac Fluidics' has extensive technology management experience and will put in place a well-structured project leading to the clear deliverables highlighted below.- The production of a industrially required product bas ed on a new platform technology that will allow us to strengthen our position as a global leader in supplying low-volume instrumentation and to assist in placing Europe as the global leader in nanotechnology innovation.- Embedding new research skills within our organization allowing us to increase our RTD capability and profile beyond this Marie Curie project and to grow the research division of our organization.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- ALLEGRO TECHNOLOGIES LTD. (TRADING UNDER THE NAME DEERAC FLUIDICS) · DUBLINCoordinatorCity levelIreland
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union