New pharmacological treatments for epilepsy will be discovered through the development of new screening platforms that are rapid, reliable, and can identify novel disease-modifying therapies, or anti-epileptogenic treatments. Xona Microfluidic, LLC (?Xona?) is in a unique position to provide such screening tools and services for epilepsy research. Xona focuses on the development of microfluidic platforms for neuron cell culture and provides devices that allow compartmentalization and fluidic isolation of axons and/or dendrites, and somata. We have patented technology and have sold devices to hundreds of labs world-wide, including many pharmaceutical laboratories. Epileptogenesis induces an imbalance in inhibitory/excitatory circuits within the brain, leading to hyper-excitability and seizures. A common cause of epilepsy is brain damage due to traumatic brain injury or stroke, often involving pyramidal cells within the hippocampus. Our academic partners at UNC recently demonstrated the reliable induction of hyper-excitability in pyramidal cells using a standard neuron device (SND) configuration microfluidic chamber in response to axotomy (Nagendran et al., Nature Communications, 2017). This hyper-excitability, which involves an imbalance of excitation and inhibition, develops reliably and with a delay, at two days after axotomy. In separate NIH funding, we dramatically improved the manufacturability of our platform leading to fully assembled, more robust devices. Here 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 customers.
Aim 1 focuses on developing a new injection moldable platform optimized to increase axon damage in a multi-well format.
Aim 2 will lead to the development of an immunoassay to rapidly measure inhibitory/excitatory balance within this microfluidic screening platform.
This project will provide an important resource for the development of more effective epilepsy treatments. Knowledge gained from this project has the potential to improve therapies and recovery outcomes for epilepsy.
