The Qube - The Next Generation Platform for Ion Channel Screening
4 Sept 2012Sophion is pleased to announce the upcoming release of the newest state-of-the-art instrument for direct patch clamp assays on ion channels, the Qube. This is Sophion’s next generation high-throughput system for ion channel screening, intended for use in laboratories with a need for thousands of data points per day. The Qube finally bridges the gap between high-throughput and high quality in ion channel assays and allows for a faster drug discovery process.
“The Qube offers the same uncompromising high data quality as our QPatch and with a previously unseen low cost per data point. With the Qube, Sophion accommodates the need pharmaceutical companies have to screen large compound libraries to find compound leads for ion channel targets”, says Torsten Freltoft, CEO at Sophion Bioscience, and he continues: “By virtue of it being the highest-throughput automated patch clamp system to date, the Qube provides access to high quality data earlier in the drug discovery process than ever before, thereby making the process more efficient”.
The Qube can be used for primary and secondary screening of any ion channel of interest. Sophion’s vast experience with planar patch clamp from the QPatch products has been utilized to create gigaseal recording substrates and flow channels for liquid exchange in the Qube measurement plates. With 384 parallel measurement sites and as little as 10-15 minutes per plate run, the Qube enables testing more than 1500 compounds in a single hour. With full automation features – a plate stacker and cell preparation unit – for unattended operation, the system provides walk-away time, which the scientist can use for other important tasks. The Qube is easy to operate with user-friendly software for experiment setup, automated data analysis and data export.
The Qube expands Sophion’s product range and Sophion’s global reputation for high quality, high throughput ion channel screening systems, supported by excellent application scientists and technical support.