Wednesday, September 24, 2008
2008 R&D 100 Winner
Accelerating the pace of pharmaceutical research and production by eliminating bottlenecks in protein crystallography, assay development, and other areas of drug development is the goal of the Formulator from Formulatrix, Inc., Waltham, Mass. The Formulator is a microfluidic liquid handler that can dispense volumes of 200 nL and greater from 17 reagent sources into standard microplates. It has 96 independently actuated micropumps in a single chip the size of a microplate, and each micropump has its own nozzle for non-contact dispensing directly into the microplate. Because it has individual control over each of the 96 outputs and dispenses them all in parallel, the Formulator offers up to 10 times faster dispensing speed for simple and complex experiments as compared to conventional liquid handlers. The underlying micropump technology is fast, scalable, inexpensive, and flexible and will enable faster and more accurate liquid handlers and more complex microfluidic devices.
Technology
Microfluidic liquid handler
Developer
Formulatrix, Inc.
