Biotech firm BioScale presented data this week at the Society of Laboratory Automation and Screening annual meeting in Orlando demonstrating the ability of its acoustic membrane microparticle technology to quantify levels of multiple cytokines in serum and plasma.
The presentation reported on the company's use of the AMMP technology to develop assays for cytokines including IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12P70, IL-17A, IL-17F, and TNF-alpha.
Coefficients of variation for the assays in both plasma and blood averaged under 10 percent, the company said, adding that the assays were developed in three to seven days and fully validated in less than a month.
Bioscale's AMMP technology is an acoustical, rather than an optical, detection system for protein analytics. A capture agent like an antibody is attached to a resonating membrane and then exposed to a sample containing the analyte of interest. The analyte is captured by the affinity agent bound to the membrane, which adds mass to the membrane and in turn changes the frequency of the membrane's oscillations. The system detects and quantitates the analyte of interest by measuring these changes in frequency.
The company was founded in 2002 and launched its first commercial product – the AMMP-based ViBE system – in 2011.