In Phase I we will develop a prototype of a fully automatic high-throughput, low-cost, multi-sample mRNA purification instrument. Unlike any other process currently available for mRNA purification, this instrument will use a derivative of electrophoretic separation technology that was previously developed by our company for automated purification of plasmid DNA in combination with a novel mRNA separation method and collection process. The separation technique that we will develop is powerful in that can be performed with the combination of a multi-channel, disposable sample cassettee and an inexpensive processing instrument. The availability of this instrument and its supplies will save countless hours of medical and biological research is labs that currently use manual mRNA isolation procedures. Prior to Phase I, we made preliminary tests of this automated method and showed that it satisfactorily purified multiple samples of mRNA in less than 45 minutes. In this preliminary work, we showed that the purification method can be used on a wide range of starting cell numbers of tissue weights and still yield highly pure, biologically active mRNA. The process purifies mRNA directly from a cell or tissue lysate by a fully automated, two step process that can purify dozens of samples in parallel. The instrument will cost less than $3000 to the end user with disposable costs of less than $1.5 per sample.
The methods and products developed in this work will be commercialized by MacConnell Research Corp. in the form of instruments and disposable products that can be marketed to the 40,000 molecular biology laboratories worldwide. These products will greatly enhance the capability of researchers attempting to study genetic diseases, viral infection and cellular mechanisms at the molecular level.
