Sophion instrument grant fuels collaborative ion channel research across London
Announcing Sophion’s first instrument grant award: A London-wide consortium, comprising multiple users and institutions, has been awarded a QPatch 48X giving access to automated patch clamp in a shared, core facility hosted at Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London (UCL).
The installation of a QPatch system at UCL is transforming their electrophysiology research. Beyond serving as a research tool for the consortium’s ion channel labs, it acts as a shared resource that fosters collaboration, expands research networks, and provides essential training for early career researchers across London, the UK, and globally.
Following Dr. Aamir Ahmed’s receipt of the instrument grant award as the shared facility project leader at UCL, we had the opportunity to discuss the award with him. Below are the key points from our conversation, followed by the full Q&A where Dr. Ahmed shares his plans, hopes, ambitions, and thoughts on how the QPatch will be utilized by the London consortium ion channel labs.
- A model for shared scientific resources: The multi-user model is applied to electrophysiology. Within just three months, eight London consortium research groups from UCL and several other London Universities have used the QPatch 48X.
- Empowering young scientists: QPatch makes electrophysiology more accessible to early-career researchers and PhD students, enhancing their skills and career prospects.
- Expanding and enhancing education: Automated patch clamp (APC) technology, unlike traditional manual patch clamp (MPC) techniques, requires minimal training and allows multiple users to easily enhance their technical skills.
- Strengthening collaborations: The partnership with Sophion Bioscience drives innovation. Interest extends beyond London, with researchers from York and Rutgers University eager to participate.
- The future of shared electrophysiology research: Discussions are underway to expand the facility and secure funding, aiming to establish a long-term, collaborative, self-sustaining core facility.
Sophion instrument grant: London consortium members from the University of Westminster in action on QPatch at the UCL shared facility. From left to right – Dr. Sarah Lilley (Sophion); MSc student Maryke Venter; PhD student Laima Tokhi; Dr. Kevin Cunningham.
"When shown the slide of getting many months’ worth of data in two weeks on QPatch, Laima's eyes lit up."
Interview with instrument grant winner: Aamir Ahmed
How do you see the multi-user, multi-institution placement working?
Very well. We have had the QPatch 48X for just 3 months, and I think we have already met many of the milestones that we set out at the beginning of this venture. The multi-user, multi-institution model has been successfully implemented for techniques from microscopy to gene sequencing, previously, and I am encouraged to see that it can be used for QPatch use as well.
Do you see this as a way to collaborate closely with the industry and think more commercially?
I believe extensive exposure of companies, particularly like Sophion, to academia and vice versa can have a great impact on collaborative research and development and commercialization.
Do you think this is a scalable idea for other regions, even countries?
Yes, absolutely. I have spoken about this, in relation to academia, to colleagues at Sophion for quite some time, and I am delighted that we are trialling the first such venture at the UCL. I see no reason why this cannot be rolled out elsewhere. Incidentally, we have been approached by colleagues as far as York in the UK and Rutgers in the US to use QPatch at UCL. That indicates a potential to be tapped.
"I see no reason why this cannot be rolled out elsewhere"
What was it like to collaborate with Sophion during this process?
It has always been a delight to work with Sophion., I have been doing it for over a decade and am always impressed by their generosity, knowledge, and dedication. It was no different during this process, and catching up with old collaborators (Naja and Duncan) and meeting new ones (Eliska, Damian, Mark, and Sarah in person and getting introduced to Annisa, Kaedla, Samir, and others remotely) has been a delight.
Do you think this will change the perception of APC vs MPC?
Yes. A number of electrophysiologists have a negative perception of Automated Patch Clamp because of other machines that are not very robust with a key drawback that these did not achieve Giga Ohm seals (the holy grail for all patch clampers). QPatch has proved to be a game changer with a planar automated patch clamp technology that can provide Giga-seals. Exposure to QPatch, with its robustness and ease of use, is bound to change perceptions, and I believe that within this project, it already has. The other obvious advantage is the throughput, which is not possible with conventional, manual patch clamp; it becomes a no-brainer if one can obtain 10s or 100s of recordings from individual cells using APC rather than struggling for months to achieve the same! For me, another key advantage is the small volume that is critical for the biophysical characteristics and cost-effective with regards to expensive reagent use.
Giga Ohm seals- the holy grail for all patch clampers.
What plans do you see on the horizon for such a shared core facility?
In this venture, I have aimed to gather a mix of expert electrophysiologists and electrophysiology ‘virgins’ who can benefit from the relative ease of use and design of QPatch to implement electrophysiology in their experimental repertoire; our shared core facility is central to this plan. For those new to electrophysiology, the Sophion Analyzer (which has proved a hit with younger users in particular) has also helped remove the mystery of electrophysiology data analysis. There has been a lot of interest in the QPatch use, more than we anticipated, and more groups interested than the limited consumables (e.g. QPlates) that we can currently offer. We hope that we can work with Sophion (and possibly funding agencies) to solve this and expand the use of QPatch during the current tenure. Ultimately, we aim to submit grant proposals to acquire a QPatch to be available for use in our facility with a multi-user model.
What benefits do you hope it will bring? Personally and/or to the labs using the shared facility?
Doing good science is the prime benefit for the group of scientists involved in this venture. Also, leading from my response to your last question, I believe the introduction of new users and changing attitudes of conventional patch clamp users would be another benefit. In addition to established electrophysiologists, we have already had an enthusiastic response from young stem cell scientists and immunologists who have not used electrophysiology in their experiments previously to try QPatch for hypothesis-led experiments. I am hopeful that we can expand the use of electrophysiology as a central approach to address biological questions. Personally, this is worth the time and effort both us and Sophion have put into this project.
In addition to its use in research, have you considered using it as an education tool to teach/train students in ion channel physiology, pharmacology, and the patch clamp technique? E.g. expanding its uses would broaden the justifications with funding bodies, even give more options for funding sources.
Yes. As far as its use in education is concerned, having QPatch on site provides a great opportunity. Unlike conventional patch clamp, where you can only teach one or, at best, two students on a rig, QPatch provides huge flexibility to train a large number of students. At least half of the users of QPatch at UCL are Masters or PhD students or post-docs. I believe that, sustainability will require exposing and training new students and young scientists who will use these technologies in the future.
This is an unusual shared facility in that it doesn’t solely serve UCL ion channel researchers but covers several institutions across London. What do you hope to achieve (cross-fertilization of ideas, science, techniques, collaborations, etc.)?
It is not that unusual for London. We now have QPatch users from UCL, Imperial, Queen Mary and King’s Colleges, and the University of Westminster. There is also a huge mix of expertise and different research interests. This is bound to inculcate mutual learning and cross-fertilization of ideas and hopefully new research projects. By bringing together colleagues at monthly user meetings to foster collaboration, a tremendous amount of added value has been achieved, already.
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