Ion channels are membrane proteins that selectively regulate the movement of ions across cellular membranes. Ion channels play a role in many pathophysiological states, such as pain, epilepsy, metabolic disorders, obesity, diabetes, cardiac arrhythmias and renal disease. Studying the role of ion channels in disease is often slow because traditional patch clamp electrophysiology, although precise, is also a low throughput technique that can only be done by researchers who have specialized training and equipment. This bottleneck restricts the number of ion channel research problems that can be addressed by any lab or institution, compared to other drug targets, such as the G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Recent advances in ion channel technologies have demonstrated that studying ion channels can be done in high- throughput (HT). The first instrument that was specifically designed to study ion channels in HT was IonWorks HT. IonWorks HT was breakthrough technology because it enabled the study of ion channels in a 384-well ion channel instrument for the first time. The current market leader in HT electrophysiology (HT ephys) is Nanion. Nanion's SyncroPatch 384PE can record 384 cells in parallel, which can generate 20,000 data points per day. This gigaseal HT ephys instrument can measure the physiology and pharmacology of all classes of ion channels, including rapidly sensitizing ones such as alpha 7 nicotinic receptors. The Center for Chemical Genomics (CCG) is the well established home of HT biology and pharmacology at the University of Michigan (U-M), and has conducted over 200 high throughput screens over the last decade. The CCG's research team collectively has eight decades of pharmaceutical experience which provides them extensive knowledge of best practices in HTS assay development, validation, execution and informatics, and has the expertise to implement HT ion channel screening. However, there is currently no HT ephys instrument at U-M. Adding this highly scalable technology to the CCG, will allow the full exploration and exploitation of ion channel research and ion channel drug discovery at U-M and our collaborating partners.
U-M aims to accelerate basic research and drug discovery on ion channels by adding Nanion's SyncroPatch 384PE to the CCG at the U-M Life Sciences Institute (LSI). The resources of the CCG are available to all researchers at the U-M, as well as other institutions.
