Boehringer Ingelheim case story: Enhancing electrophysiology workflows with QPatch – ensuring the highest data quality and reproducible results
Increasing throughput without compromising experiment quality, while preserving physiological conditions, was a key priority for Nadia von Schoubye at Boehringer Ingelheim when she was looking to enhance their electrophysiology capabilities.
"We needed a new system with higher output while preserving key advantages, such as the ability to perform washout steps and avoid seal enhancers for detailed characterizations of compounds"
“Automation has significantly reduced our manual workload”, explains Nadia von Schoubye. ”In our most extreme example, tests that previously took a week were reduced to just one hour of work”. QPatch’s consistency minimizes variability and eliminates the subjective elements of manual patch clamp techniques. “Every electrophysiologist knows there’s a bit of superstition involved in manual patch clamp – it’s tricky, sensitive, and time-consuming. With QPatch, you can test different intracellular solutions and immediately compare success rates under identical conditions, removing much of that guesswork,” says Nadia von Schoubye.
"Even in our most extreme example, at its lowest throughput, the QPatch processes one compound concentration response per hour, compared to one week with manual patch clamp. It’s a game-changer"
Today, the QPatch is optimizing research workflows in the lab, enabling new research opportunities and accelerating progress in focus therapy areas. The system’s simplicity allows the team to quickly set up experiments, collect high-quality data, and present their findings to key stakeholders.
Boehringer Ingelheim’s experience highlights the importance of selecting the right instrument for specific research needs rather than defaulting to the highest throughput system. When Nadia von Schoubye took over the lab, manual patch clamp dominated their workflow. She transformed their approach. As she puts it: “The moment you start to use QPatch and you can see how much you can test in a day, it’s honestly a little hard to go back to manual patch clamp.”