New webinar in March – Novel patch clamp assays to advance pain research

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the role of ion channels in pain signaling, particularly in the context of chronic pain conditions. Researchers have identified several ion channels involved in the sensation of pain, including the transient receptor potential (TRP) channels and the voltage-gated sodium channels (NaV). Understanding how these channels contribute to pain signaling is a key step in developing new and more effective pain therapies.
 

In this webinar, attendees will gain insight into the realm of automated patch clamp assays, exploring the mechanisms of pain. First, Daniel Sauter will offer an overview, highlighting assays for typical pain targets recombinantly expressed in model cells and a concise introduction to the utilization of iPSC-derived DRG neurons in pain research. Reza Ghovanloo will present a groundbreaking study on recording currents from freshly isolated DRG neurons.

ICMS® 2023 UK

We are happy to announce the dates for our next ICMS in Cambridge, UK.

Mark you calendar and keep an eye out for more information here.

Registration opens on 2 February, so click below to secure your seat.

Biophysics in coming up

Meet our ion channel experts at Biophysics this February. You can find us at booth #509 and get a demo on QPatch Compact, the latest member of our APC family.

Also, make sure to sign up for the annual Drug Discovery for Ion Channels XXIII, which takes place on Friday, February 17, in Room 8 at San Diego Convention Center.

Again this year, you are invited to our mini-symposium titled Electrophysiological Characterization of Cardiac Myocytes using Sophion Biosciences’ Automated patch Clamp Systems and the Intracellular Side of Axxam Electrophysiology. This meeting takes place on Tuesday, February 21, 11.30 AM – 1:00 PM in room 9 at San Diego Convention Center.

Sign up for our next webinar

You can now sign up for our next webinar on Automated Patch Clamp and iPSC. In this webinar, we will be focusing on manual and automated patch clamp measurements of IK1 currents in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes.

Guest speaker Fitzwilliam Seibertz from the University Center Göttingen will join us to give a presentation on ‘Differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells into cardiomyocytes with a focus on maturity-induced IK1 development’.

This is followed by Sophion’s iPSC expert, Kadla Røskva Rosholm, who will take us through recent Sophion data on the electrophysiological characterization of hiPSC-derived CMs, including voltage-gated IK1 currents and action potential measurements, using automated patch clamp.

Read more and register for the webinar here

User Group Meeting – North America

Sophion Bioscience North America is thrilled to be hosting our in-person user meeting once again! We are excited to welcome all our users together to discuss the latest developments and best practices using the QPatch II and Qube 384 instrumentations. As well as introducing our newest instrument the QPatch Compact.

Topics will vary from techniques to use with iPSCs on automated patch-clamp instrumentation to cutting-edge new assays on a variety of channels.

This year’s meeting will future various speakers and a first look at our brand new facility in Bedford, MA. In between presentations there will be ample time to network and enjoy local brews and snacks.

Speakers include Kevin Sampson (Columbia University), Chris Hinckley (Biogen), Robert Brenner (UTHSCSA) and more.

Place:

Sophion Bioscience Inc. 312 Burlington Road,
Bedford, MA 01730

Nearest Hotels:

Hampton Inn

Homewood Suites

Residence Inn by Marriott

User Group Meeting – Europe

We are happy to invite you to our first in-person User Group Meeting in three years.

This year the meeting will be held at our premises in Copenhagen, and we are preparing a two-day event with a full-day scientific programme on day one and a hands-on workshop on day two, where you can get the chance to discuss with our ion channel experts and get a demo of our new QPatch Compact.

We plan to start at 9.00 AM on Thursday, September 8^th and wrap up just after lunch on Friday, September 9^th giving you the chance to spend the weekend in wonderful Copenhagen.

We currently have confirmed speakers from Metrion Biosciences, the Technical University of Copenhagen (DTU), Evotec, GSK and more. Stay posted for the agenda.

The Safety Pharmacology Society 2022 Annual Meeting

We’re happy to be back at the annual SPS meeting, which this year takes place in Montreal, Canada.

You can meet with experts on-site to hear more about how we can help your lab optimise your work with ion channels.

Drop by our booth no. 210 and get a demo of our new tabletop patch clamp system – QPatch Compact.

Read more about SPS here.

Webinar: Automated Patch Clamping and iPSC Part II

We now have our next webinar on Automated Patch Clamp and iPSC planned.

Drug discovery in neuroscience faces many unique challenges, including access to the central nervous system through the blood-brain barrier and complex biology and circuitry that is still being defined. In order to overcome these challenges to identify treatments for neurodevelopmental disorders, scientists need better preclinical data.

One requirement for improved preclinical data is a robust model system. Recent advances in stem cell technology have allowed for the creation of stem cells from patient skin or blood cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These patient-derived iPSCs can then be differentiated into neurons to model how a patient mutation causes changes in neuronal function compared with a healthy control neuron, followed by testing of therapeutics for reversal of these in vitro phenotypes. This strategy has already successfully transitioned from the bench to the clinic for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We have recently used this technology to better understand the cellular and molecular consequences of loss of CDKL5 in iPSC-derived neurons.

With Sophion’s automated patch technology, we can begin to understand the functional changes taking place in neurons with loss of CDKL5 function. Together, these model systems and technologies can be used to screen for and identify novel therapeutic targets for neurodevelopmental disorders.

In this webinar, Elizabeth Buttermore from Boston Children’s Hospital and Kadla R Rosholm from Sophion will give a joint presentation titled: Cellular, molecular and electrophysiological characterization of CDKL5 deficiency disorder in iPSC-derived neurons.

The NCCR TransCure Final Conference

Sophion is co-sponsoring this conference – NCCR TRansCure Final Conference – Excellence in Membrane Transport Research.

The meeting will take place in Bern, Switzerland from 17-19 August.

See the program here.

Ion channels and transporters: From molecule to human

We are excited to be co-sponsoring the EMBO/FEBS lecture course: Ion channels and transporters: from molecule to human.

This EMBO Practical Course provides an overview of the latest aspects of ion channel and transporter research. Topics covered include structural, functional and computational aspects, as well as more general themes, such as publishing and the role of women in science.

The meeting is taking place in Erice, Italy.

46th EWGCCE Meeting

This year we will be at the Annual Meeting of the ESC Working Group on Cardiac Cellular Electrophysiology.

We are joining more than 100 professionals specialized in the fields of cardiac ion channel physiology, excitation-contraction coupling, myocardial electrophysiology and related fields of cardiac physiology and pathophysiology.

See you in Toledo in June.

Ion Channel Modulation Symposium 2022 (UK)

After two years of COVID lockdown, we can finally meet in person again, and there’s probably not a better opportunity to do this than at the Sophion Ion Channel Modulation.

This scientific meeting takes place at Clare College in beautiful Cambridge, the United Kingdom.

Read more about the symposium here where you can also see the agenda and register.

Webinar coming up: APC and iPSC

We are happy to announce our next webinar taking place on March 15^th at 6 PM CET.

Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) offer much potential as inducible specialized model cells for biomedical studies and drug discovery.

In this webinar, Sophion Bioscience‘s Daniel Sauter will introduce hiPSC and their use on APC. This will lead to a collaboration with BrainXell, where Mike Hendrickson will present how they’ve used hiPSC in BrainXell’s CNS disease models and drug discovery.

We look forward to seeing you.

Webinar coming up; APC & large molecules: a Venomtech/Charles River Laboratories venom toxin library screen

We are happy to invite you to our very first webinar in 2022.

Drug Discovery for Ion Channels XXII – 2022 Satellite Meeting

This year’s meeting will highlight presentations from drug discovery companies, companies that provide ion channel services to drug discovery companies and companies that provide products to ion channel drug discovery companies, as well as other speakers in the field of ion channel drug discovery, including several academic speakers.

Please read much more about the meeting here

Please click here to register for the meeting. On-site registration will not be available, so please make sure to get your seat now.

Time:      Friday February 18 – 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM PST

Place:      Esplanade, Room 153, Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA

Safety Pharmacology Society – Annual Meeting 2021 (virtual)

For the second year in a row, SPS will be virtual. Sophion will be having a virtual booth again. Read about the meeting here.

Stay tuned for more information.

Sophion User Meeting – Virtual (Europe)

You are invited to the annual Sophion User Meeting, which will be a virtual one. We had hoped that it would be possible to finally meet in person again this autumn for the traditional User Meeting in Europe. Still, we acknowledge that many of you don’t know if you can travel yet due to company policies or are concerned about the COVID-19 situation in general.

Even though we initially planned it as a European meeting, everyone is welcome. So virtual meetings aren’t always for the worse.

Speakers:

• Eddy Stevens from Metrion Biosciences
  Title: Development of a QPatch current-clamp assay as a physiologically relevant screen for Kv1.3 inhibitors
• Juha Kammonen from Charles River Labs
• David Penton Ribas from the University of Zürich
  Title: Automated patch clamp in academic research. Challenges and opportunities
  
• Mads P. G. Korsgaard, Product Manager – Qube 384
  Title: News & updates on Sophion instruments
• Thomas Binzer, VP R&D and Marketing
  Title: Sophion Management Update

We have more speakers in the pipeline.

Stay tuned.

We reserve the right to turn down any registrant.

74th Annual Meeting of the Society of General Physiologists

We are happy to be co-sponsoring the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society of General Physiologists themed Ion Channels & Transporters in Immunity, Inflammation &
Antitumor Immunity.

The 74th Annual Meeting of the Society of General Physiologist will be the first international conference fully dedicated to the topic of Ion Channels and Transporters (ICTs) in the immune system. This meeting will provide a unique opportunity for immunologists and ion channel physiologists to discuss latest advances in the regulation, function and physiological roles of ion channels in innate and adaptive immunity.

The meeting will take place in September at Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, the United States and it’s possible to attend both online as well as in person.

Find out more about registration here.

71st National Congress of The Italian Society of Physiology

We are happy to be co-sponsoring the 71st National Congress of The Italian Society of Physiology. This event will be virtual.

Our very own Beatrice Badone will give a talk on 7th September at 16.30 (Hall D). Beatrice will present Sophion’s data on High throughput screening using QPatch II and Qube 384 systems: electrophysiological evaluation of primary neurons, glial cells and hiPSC-derived motor neurons.

Abstract:

The QPatch II and Qube 384 are two automated patch-clamp (APC) systems useful for evaluating the electrophysiological properties of different cell models, with the possibility to perform high throughput compound screening for drug discovery. These systems provide high fidelity recordings which, in combination with accurate, low volume applications, make them ideal for studying both voltage- and ligand-gated ion channels. With a rapidly increasing number of ion channels identified as potential therapeutic targets in neurological diseases, there is an urgency of finding valid neuronal cell models. Among these, primary brain cells and human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs)-derived neurons are promising physiological models for evaluating ion channels properties and potential drugs. Here we used our APC systems for studying both voltage-gated (Na, K ) and ligand-gated (GABA ) ion channels by comparing two different brain models: i) primary neurons and astrocytes dissociated from mouse and rat brains, respectively; and ii) hiPSC-derived motor neurons. Patch-clamp recordings require healthy membranes for high resistance sealing; however, different isolation methods may alter the membrane composition and change intracellular characteristics. Here we demonstrate that the electrophysiological properties of both brain cell models are maintained during APC recordings, confirming that both QPatch II and Qube 384 are powerful platforms for investigating brain cell models.

You can read much more about the event here.

Sophion Virtual User Meeting – North America

With the continually evolving Coronavirus situation the Sophion North America team has made the decision to host our October 13th, 2021 User Meeting entirely virtually. While this does mean no Lord Hobo beer tasting this year, we are still very excited to see all of our wonderful users virtually and to hear presentations from our group of distinguished speakers.

When: 11 AM ET October 13th

Where: Online

Speakers:

If you have any questions please reach out to ski@sophion.com

Sophion is committed to following the CDC’s guidance regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and will encourage social distancing and mask-wearing whenever necessary.

Sophion User Meeting – Japan

Stay tuned for more information about the virtual User Meeting in Japan 10th September 2021.

SLAS2022

Meet us at SLAS2022 at Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. You can find us in booth #1548.

Make sure to drop by our booth  – we are bringing our brand new semi-automated patch clamp system, QPatch Compact, for demos.

Poster presentation:

Tuesday, 8th February – 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM

1088-D: Characterization of the rapidly-desensitizing α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor using the Qube (click here to see the abstract)

Weifeng Yu, PhD – Director, SOPHION BIOSCIENCE

Exhibition hours are:

Monday 7th February 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Tuesday 8th February 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Wednesday 9th February 10.30 AM – 1:30 PM

Biophysics 2022

We will be at the 66th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting meeting in 2022.

Meet our ion channel team at booth #519 from Sunday  to Tuesday (20th to 22nd February) where we will showcase our brand new QPatch Compact – a semi-automated patch clamp system.

You can also try to do a bit of virtually automated patch clamping in our VR Sophion universe at the booth.

Monday February 21st

Poster presentation at 1:45 PM – poster board no. B449 – Presenter: Mei Zhang

Title: Using automated patch clamp for high throughput characterization of sodium and potassium channels in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived sensory neurons

Tuesday February 22nd

Poster presentation at 1:45 PM – poster board no. LB65 – Presenter: Application Scientist Mei Zhang

Title: Electrophysiological characterization of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes in physiological solutions using QPatch II, including measurements of ik1 and compound effects on paced action potentials

Virtual Ion Channel Modulation Symposium 2021

When life gives you lemons…. organise a virtual meeting. To keep the ICMS-spirit alive we have chosen to have a virtual mini ICMS this year, and you are invited.

Mark your calendar for 16th June from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM CET

As the symposium is a virtual one, there will unfortunately not be any nice lunch breaks and face-to-face networking with colleagues and friends, no dinner in the Great Hall followed by drinks in the JCR Students’ bar.

But that being said, we are planning next year’s ICMS already, and, this will be a physical symposium as we know it from the past four years. And we can’t wait.  More information about the dates will be communicated during the summer.

SLAS Annual Meeting 2022

You can find us at booth #1548 at the 2022 SLAS International Conference and Exhibition. We look forward to finally seeing you in person.

The conference will take place at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, MA.

Neuroscience 2021 – Virtual Meeting

Neuroscience 2021 will take place online November 8-11, 2021

For more information about the meeting, click here

Sophion Virtual User Meeting

We are planning our next virtual Sophion User Meeting so please mark your calendar. The meeting will take place at 12 noon (EDT) and 6 PM (CEST) and will last for around 3 hours with a lineup of around 3-4 speakers.

While we are still working on creating a really interesting program for you, we can already introduce the following speakers:

• Thomas Binzer, VP R&D and Marketing – Sophion Bioscience
• Fernanda Caldas Cardoso & Mahadhi Hasan – The University of Queensland
• Mads P. G. Korsgaard, Global Product Manager for Qube – Sophion Bioscience
• Manuel Paina – Axxam
• Muthukrishnan Renganathan – Eurofins

If you are prevented from attending we will record the meeting for you to watch at a later time.

We reserve the right to turn down any registrant.

Texas Pain Research Highlights 2021

We are happy to be part of the Texas Pain Research Highlights 2021 meeting that takes place on April 7th and 8th.

You can meet us in our virtual booth where it will be possible to chat with our ion channel experts. More information will follow shortly.

On April 8, 12:35 – 1:15 PM CST, Dr Daniel Sauter, Scientific Sales Manager will be presenting a poster titled:

Biophysical and pharmacological profiling of multiple voltage-gated sodium channel subtypes on QPatch II

In the meantime, you can read relevant publications, papers, reports and posters on ion channels in pain right here.

Webinar: Automated Patch Clamping in CROs – How APC is advancing cardiac safety assessment

In this webinar, Sophion’s Dr Anders Lindqvist will give an introduction to how APCs have revolutionised our capabilities to efficiently determine cardiac safety liabilities & how the latest advances in APC technology are making tomorrow’s drugs safer.

Our guest speaker will be Dr Michael Morton of ApconiX, a CRO that specialises in drug toxicology & safety assessment. Dr Morton will present examples of cardiac ion channel safety pharmacology studies showcasing the development of APC technologies & where the latest technology will take our drug discovery efforts.

Drug Discovery for Ion Channels XXII – virtual satellite Meeting

Sophion Bioscience are happy again to co-sponsor the annual satellite meeting: Drug Discovery for Ion Channels but this year in a virtual version.

Together with the other organisers Metrion Biosciences, Fluxion, SB Drug Discovery and Nanion, we look forward to bidding you welcome.

We have an exciting speaker line up including Irina Vetter from the University of Queensland, Andrew Jenkins – Emory University, Julie Klint – Lundbeck, John Atack – Cardiff University, Steven Griffin – University of Leeds, David Baez-Nieto – Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Webinar: Automated Patch Clamp in Academia Part II

The role of ion channels as promising pharmacological targets in oncology is well-documented. Ion channel inhibition has the potential to reduce proliferation, migration and invasion of cancer cells, as well as block tumour angiogenesis pathways. In the last decade, our understanding of ion channel function in carcinogenesis has dramatically accelerated due to Automated Patch Clamping and will continue to be a key focus of future research in the ion channel field. Although further work is needed to fully understand ion channel function in carcinogenesis and possible side effects, it is an exciting and emerging area of research in the ion channel field.

In this webinar, we will provide a brief overview of the ion channels of interest in oncology and Dr Aamir Ahmed from King’s College London will discuss his work using QPatch for the investigations of the overlap between ion channels, wnt-signalling and intracellular calcium release in cancer cells. Aamir will be followed by application scientist, Naja Møller Sørensen, from Sophion who will give a short presentation about ion channels and cancer

BPS2021 65th Biophysical Annual Meeting

Biophysics 2021 will be virtual. Sophion will be attending as usual but with a virtual booth.

Read more about the meeting here. More information about the annual satellite meeting: Drug Discovery in Ion Channels will follow shortly, so stay posted.

SfN Global Connectome – a virtual event

Neuroscience, which was planned for late October 2020, was cancelled due to the global pandemic situation.

SfN has now organised the SfN Global Connectome virtual event instead and Sophion will be part of this event with a virtual booth. At our booth you can meet with Daniel Sauter, Scientific Sales Manager and Gus Fish, Sales Account Manager, both from Sophion Bioscience, North America.

Dr Weifeng Yu, Senior Application Scientist with Sophion Bioscience, North America will be presenting a poster titled:

“Evaluation of positive allosteric modulators of SK2 channels using QPatch”

Abstract:

Small-conductance Ca²⁺-activated K+ (SK) channels mediate afterhyperpolarization in neurons and dampen the firing frequency of action potentials. Calmodulin is constitutively associated with the SK2 channels and serves as the Ca²⁺ sensor for the SK-calmodulin complex. The SK2 channel subtype plays a key role in the regulation of excitability of Purkinje cells in the cerebellum. Given their importance in Purkinje cells, SK2 channels are a promising drug target for ataxia, a movement disorder.

Automated patch clamp (APC) machines, such as QPatch, have been used in the pharmaceutical industry to study drug interaction with varieties of ion channels. Over the past decade, the technology has contributed significantly to pharmaceutical research and drug discovery. Here, we report to use QPatch as a tool for testing and evaluating the positive allosteric modulators of SK2 channels. A stable cell line of the rat SK2 channel tagged with GFP was established through transfection of HEK293 cells followed by puromycin selection and enrichment using repeated GFP fluorescence-activated cell sorting.

Positive allosteric modulators were tested under whole-cell voltage-clamp configuration with automated QPatch. The compounds that positively modulate the SK2 channels in the automated QPatch was further tested with the inside-out patch manual recordings. The results from automated whole-cell recordings and inside-out patch manual recordings were consistent.

Webinar: Automated Patch Clamp in Academia

Sophion Bioscience invites you to our very first webinar

In these Corona times, we are pleased to be still able to organise scientific meetings although in a different manner than we’re used to. Join us for an online meeting on APC in academia on

Thursday 3^rd December at 4:00 PM (CET)

For this webinar, we are pleased to introduce Dr Damian Bell from Sophion Bioscience. Damian will present Sophions’ work with Bridging the Gap Between Basic & Applied Research.

Damian will be followed by Dr Nina Ottosson from Linköping University who will give a talk about  APC in Academia – Screening of Resin Acid Derivatives as Kv7.2/7.3 channel openers

In these Corona times, we are pleased to be still able to organise scientific meetings although in a different manner than we’re used to. Join us for a webinar on Automated Patch Clamp in academia on Thursday 3rd December at 4:00 PM (CET).

Click here to register.

We reserve the right to turn down any registrant.

Upcoming Networking Event hosted by BPS: A World of Opportunity: Ion Channels and Automated Patch-Clamping

We invite you to attend the Biophysical Society’s event: A World of Opportunity: Ion Channels and Automated Patch-Clamping.”

Hear from accomplished speakers with experience working in pharma, academia, and biotechnology cover topics, including why they chose a career working with ion channels, the transition from academia to industry, profound discoveries as a result of their work, and where they see the field moving towards in the future.

User Meeting (virtual) – hosted by Sophion NA

The event will be from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm on the 22nd of September, 2020.

The agenda will be as follows:

11:00: Sophion Latest News – Mads Korsgaard, Global Product Manager, Sophion Bioscience

11:30: Jonathan Mann, Group Leader Biology Discovery, Charles River Laboratories

12:00: Alexander Komarov, Senior Research Investigator, Knopp Biosciences

12:30: Dang Dao, Research Director, Astellas Institute of Regenerative Medicine

01:00: Mark Estacion, Research Scientist, Yale University

01:30: Sam Goodchild, Senior Research Scientist, Xenon Pharmaceuticals

02:00: Jim Ellis, Chief Scientific Officer, Nocion Therapeutics

02:30: QPatch II with Temperature Control Demonstration – Sung Hoon Park, Application Scientist, Sophion Bioscience

The titles of the presentations will be announced shortly.

The meeting will be held as a webinar and if you want to join, please send an email to Schuyler King.

We are looking forward to having a successful virtual user meeting.

CANCELLED: Ion Channel Modulation Symposium, Cambridge, UK

We regret to inform that due to COVID-19, the 5^th Ion Channel Modulation Symposium in Cambridge, United Kingdom, has been cancelled.

It hardly comes as a surprise that we, due to the severe situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, have to cancel the 5^th edition of the ICMS, which was scheduled to take place on June 17th and 18th, 2020.

We, at Sophion, are very disappointed to have to cancel the meeting, but we have chosen to follow the current recommendations from the official UK government site.

While we acknowledge that the cancellation will cause great disappointment to every one of you, we fully intend to hold the event again in 2021 and have reserved the venue for the

2^nd and 3^rd June 2021

We look forward to seeing everyone in 2021.

See here why you should attend the ICMS:

Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society 2020

We look forward to seeing at BPS in San Diego in February and again this year there are a lot of activities going on:

Friday, 14 February

08:00 AM – 05.00 PM – the annual satellite meeting: Drug Discovery for Ion Channels XX 

Monday, 17 February

Poster presentation:

Title: Effectiveness of the Qube in studying the rapidly-desensitizing alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor 

Presented by application scientist Sung H. Park

Time: 1:45 PM

Poster No.: B488

Tuesday, 18 February

09.30 AM – 11.00 AM. A mini-symposium titled:

Characterization of the rapidly desensitizing α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor on the Qube, Na_V1.1 assays on automated electrophysiology platforms and developing NMDA assays on the Qube system

We have the following speakers presenting at this meeting:

• Dr Sung Hoon Park, Field Application Scientist, Sophion Bioscience, USA
• Dr Shanti Amagasu, Senior Scientist, Amgen, USA
• Dr Juha Kammonen, Group Leader & Scientist, Charles River Laboratories, UK

Venue: Room 33A, San Diego Conference Center

SLAS 2020

You can meet us at SLAS 2020 from 27th to 29th January at the San Diego Convention Center.

From the Sophion team, you can meet our ion channels team Katherine Webster, President NA, Gus Fish, Sales Manager NA, Daniel Sauter, Application Scientist NA and Rasmus B Jacobsen, Application Development Manager.

Send us an email if you want to arrange a meeting with us or if you wish to have a demo on our high-throughput, automated patch clamp system, Qube 348 that we are showcasing.

Tuesday, 28 January

Poster presentation:

Title: Development of an Automated Patch Clamp Assay for recording STIM1/Orai1 – mediated currents using Qube 384

Presented by application scientist Daniel R Sauter

Time: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM

Poster No.: 1287-C

Read more about SLAS2020 here.

ICMS 2019, Boston, MA

We are thrilled to announce the dates for the very first US-based Ion Channel Modulation Symposium and look forward to seeing many ion channel professionals in October in Cambridge, MA (USA). Sophion has joined forces with Amgen and together we will host a two-day event packed with great talks and excellent networking opportunities.

The meeting will be held at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, MA.

See much more information about this meeting here.

Neuroscience 2019

This years’ SfN conference will take place in Chicago. Please drop by our booth #1608 and have an ion channel talk with our specialists.

We will keep you updated. In the meantime, you can read more about the meeting here.

Safety Pharmacology Society – annual meeting

We look forward to seeing you in Barcelona for this years’ SPS. You can meet our dedicated ion channel experts at our booth #501.

Meeting Location:

Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona
Plaça de Willy Brandt, 11–14
08019 Barcelona, Spain

More information about our activities at SPS will follow. Read more about SPS here.

Sophion User Meeting – Japan

Please mark your calendars. We are planning the Sophion User Meeting in Japan.

Venue:

Knowledge Capital Conference Rooms, Room C04
Grand Front Osaka, North Bild., Tower C, 8F
3-1 Ofuka-cho, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0011, Japan

Click here to see the agenda in English and in Japanese

SOT 58th Annual Meeting & ToxExpo

This year will will be at the SOT ToxExpo which takes place in Baltimore Convention Center. Make sure to come at see us at our booth #4298 and get a demo of our brand new QPatch II.

We look forward to see you in Baltimore – read more about SOT ToxExpo here.

Sophion User Meeting, Boston 2019

We look forward to seeing you again this year for our Sophion User Meeting in Boston.

Venue:

Hilton Boston/Woburn, 2 Forbes Rd. Woburn, MA 01801

Agenda:

April 9

11:30 AM          Registration and lunch buffet

01:00 PM          Novel small molecule Nav channel blockers selectively targeting nociceptors
Dr Xiaguang Victor Chen, Nocion

01:30 PM          KnotBodies: an efficient platform to generate ion channel modulating antibodies by fusing venom-derived knottins into antibody CDR loops
Dr Damian Bell, Iontas

02:00 PM          Utilising the Qube in a CRO environment: Case studies from HTS and hit-to-lead projects
Dr Abigail Marklew, Charles River Laboratories

02:30 PM          Coffee break

03:30 PM          IPSC-Derived Human Neurons for Disease Modeling and Drug Discovery
Dr Mike Hendrickson, BrainXell

04:00 PM          Expanding ion channel assay capabilities using high-performance cell engineering
Dr Joan Foster, MaxCyte

04:30 PM          Qube update – version Eagle, motor neurons and adaptive protocols
Dr. Mads P G Korsgaard, Sophion Bioscience A/S

05:00 PM          Dinner

April 10

08:00 AM          Coffee

09:00 AM          Profiling sodium channels to improve drug candidate safety and efficacy using the
QPatch HT
Dr Bryan Koci, Eurofins

09:30 AM          Inhibitory effects of cannabidiol on voltage-dependent sodium currents
Dr Reza Ghovanloo, Simon Fraser University and Xenon Pharmaceuticals

10:00 AM          Coffee break

10:30 AM        Impact of equilibrium om interpretation of hERG QPatch data
Dr Anatoli Lvov, Novartis

11:00 AM          QPatch II – The next generation QPatch
Dr Göran Mattsson, Sophion Bioscience A/S

11:30 AM          Lunch at the hotel

01:00 PM          Open house at Sophion Bioscience, Inc.

05:00 PM          Wrap-up

Our sponsors:

Gold sponsor:

Silver sponsor:

Local hotels:

Hilton Boston/Woburn
2 Forbes Road, Woburn, MA
Phone: +1 781-932-0999

Crowne Plaza Boston/Woburn
15 Middlesex Canal Park Drive, Woburn, MA
Phone: +1 781-935-8760

Comfort Inn Boston/Woburn
14 Hill St, Woburn, MA 01801
Phone: +1 781-933-5363

Sophion User Meeting, Copenhagen 2019

We look forward to seeing you for the annual European Sophion User Meeting. This year the meeting will be held at our premises in Copenhagen, and we are preparing a two-day event with a full-day scientific programme on day 1 and a hands-on workshop on day two, where you can get the chance to discuss with our ion channel experts.

We plan to start around 9.00 AM on Thursday, September 5th and wrap up just after lunch on Friday, September 6th giving you the chance to spend the weekend in wonderful Copenhagen.

The user meeting is kindly sponsored by:

5th September 2019

09.00     Registration – tea/coffee

09.15     Welcome remarks
Thais Johansen, Sophion Bioscience A/S

09.30     P2X3 and P2X2/3: The hare and the tortoise….
Jean Francois Rolland, Axxam SpA

10.00     Strategies for reducing attrition in early drug discovery
David Downie, GSK

10.30     Tea/coffee

11.00     NDMA assays on the Qube system
Abigail Marklew, Charles River Labs

11.30    QPatch HTX assay development for TRPM5 channel to successfully identify potentiators and blockers
Caterina Virginio, Aptuit (Evotec)

12.00    Potency determination of positive Nav1.1 modulators  measured on QPatch II
Julie Klint, Lundbeck

12.30     Lunch

13.30    TMEM16A potentiation: a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of cystic fibrosis
Sarah Lilley, Enterprise Therapeutics

14.00    Resin-acid derivatives as hKv7.2/7.3 channel openers
Nina Ottosson, Lindköping University

14.30     Recent drug discovery applications run on QPatch in CRO collaborative mode
Edward Humphries, Metrion Biosciences

15.00     Tea/coffee

15.30     Update on QPatch II
Göran Mattsson, Sophion Bioscience A/S

15.50     Update on Qube; adaptive protocols and more…..
Mads P G Korsgaard, Sophion Bioscience A/S

16.10     Sophion developments projects update
Sandra Wilson, Sophion Bioscience A/S

16.30     Wrap up
17.00     Transport to the evening event
18.00     Dinner at Færgen Ellen / Kontiki Bar

6th September 2019

09.00    Tea/coffee
09.30    Workshop day is a day dedicated the user where we will touch base with the below issues:

• Adaptive voltage protocols NEW FEATURE!
• Temperature control, new feature on QPatch II coming up!
• Custommade protocols
• Advanced analysis – bring your own assays
• Tips and tricks for cultivating cells
• Learn about the daily cleaning procedure of your APC system

If you have other issues you’d like to hear about please let us know. Drop us an email.

13.00    Lunch
Wrap up

Kv7 Channels Symposium 2019

We are happy to be taking part in this symposium which will provide comprehensive insight into the myriad aspects of Kv7 research almost 25 years after the first KCNQ gene was identified.

The symposium will be hosted at the University of Naples Federico II in the beautiful surroundings of the bay of Naples, Italy.

Read more about the Kv7 Channels Symposium here.

See you in sunny Naples in September.

Biophysical Society 63rd Annual Meeting 2019

As always at Biophysics we have a lot of activities going on. Please see below.

Friday, 1st March

Ion Channel Satellite Meeting

Sophion will be co-hosting the recurring satellite meeting, Drug Discovery for Ion Channels. Read more about the meeting here.

Saturday, 2nd March

Customer outing

Monday, 4th March

01:45 PM – Poster presentation:

Title: IPSC-derived motor neurons on the automated patch clamp platforms Qube and QPatch

Poster presenter: Application scientist Kadla Rosholm

Location: Exhibit Hall A-E – Poster board No.: B332

Abstract:

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) can be differentiated into multiple cell types, including neurons and cardiomyocytes. This gives rise to a novel way of establishing human disease models, which in turn can be used for drug development in vitro. Ion channels represent highly attractive therapeutic targets in the nervous and the cardiovascular system, rendering electrophysiological studies of hiPSCs important for their usage in drug discovery. However, such studies have traditionally been limited by the labor-intensive and low-throughput nature of patch-clamp electrophysiology. Here we use our automated patch clamp systems Qube 384 and QPatch 48 in order to increase throughput and reduce timelines.
Our observations include channel expression versus time in culture, the pharmacological dissection of endogenous ion channels (e.g. Nav and Kv), identification of ligand-gated receptors, and recordings of action potentials using the current clamp feature. Also, we show the electrophysiology of a spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) model. The disease model for SMA was derived by mutations in the SMN1 gene and shows enhanced sodium channel activity but no shift in the normalized current-voltage relationship. ALS was here mimicked by a single point mutation in the superoxide dismutase 1 protein (SOD1), D90A, which had previously been identified in recessive, dominant and seemingly sporadic pedigrees. Cells carrying this point mutation displayed larger sodium currents, which eventually led to neurofilament aggregation, neurite degeneration and other phenotypes. We could confirm that the electrophysiological effect could be reversed by point mutation to D90D.

Our measurements validate the feasibility of measuring hiPSC ion channel currents using the APC platforms Qube and QPatch. Altogether, these results can facilitate evaluating the use of hiPSC for early drug development and in extension personal medicine.

Tuesday, 5th March

Sophion Seminar

9:30-11:00 AM – Sophion will be hosting a mini ion channel symposium in Room A at Baltimore conference center titled:

Electrophysiological characterization using automated patch clamp (QPatch and Qube) of hiPSC-derived neurological disease models, new automated patch clamp ion channel assays for CiPA cardiac safety testing (dynamic hERG and LQT3 late Na_V1.5) and Na_V1.7 drug discovery.

• Marc Rogers (Metrion Bioscience): Milnes and late Na_v1.5 for cardiac safety,
• Bryan Moyer (Amgen): HTS drug discovery,
• Kadla Rosholm (Sophion): hIPS neuronal disease models
• Sarah Williams (Charles River): Adaptive online V½ estimation.

Poster presentation

01:45 PM – Poster presentation:

Title: Biophysical and pharmacological profiling of multiple voltage-gated sodium channel subtypes on QPatch II

Poster presenter: Application scientist Daniel Sauter

Location: Exhibit Hall A-E – Poster board No.: B285

Abstract:

Voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSC) are responsible for the initiation and propagation of action potentials in excitable cells. VGSC have been identified as excellent drug targets for treatment of pain, epilepsy and to other neurological disorders. Early compounds, however, were developed using empirical approaches. The identification of the molecular identity of VGSC in combination with technological advances, such as the automated patch clamp technique, provide the basis for a rational design of subtype-selective compounds.

To date, 9 functional mammalian isoforms (Na_V1.1–1.9) have been described in the literature. The various subtypes differ in their expression pattern and exhibit distinct biophysical and pharmacological profiles. All have in common that they produce a transient inward current in response to membrane depolarization. During this process, the VGSC transitions from a closed to an open into an inactivated state. Interestingly, inhibitor compounds often exhibit different pharmacological profiles dependent upon the ion channel conformational state.

In the present study, the second generation QPatch (QPatch II; Sophion Bioscience) was used in combination with adaptive voltage protocols to investigate state-dependent inhibition of tetrodotoxin (TTX) and tetracaine on 8 different VGSC subtypes (Na_V1.1-8). A first step was to determine the half-inactivation potential V_½(inactivation) for each individual cell. This value was then used during the next steps as preconditioning pulse. Such an adaptive protocol allowed to determine IC₅₀ values for both the closed and the inactivated state and reduce heterogeneity of the cells. Both IC₅₀ values and biophysical parameters of the different subtypes align well with literature values.

SLAS2019

Make sure to come and see us at booth #1703 at SLAS2019 in Washington DC. The conference will take place at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Read more about SLAS2019 here.

Sophion User Meeting 2018 – Europe

Join us for a couple of days of great QPatch and Qube talks and good company

We are happy to invite you to our European Sophion User Meeting on 5th and 6th September 2018 and we are very pleased to announce that GSK in Stevenage kindly has offered to host the meeting this year.

We are preparing an interesting programme starting at noon on 5th September giving everyone a chance to travel to Stevenage in the morning. Wrap-up on 6th September just around lunchtime.

More information about the meeting will follow shortly.

Make sure to register for the meeting now as there are a limited number of seats.

Safety Pharmacology Society Annual Meeting 2018

We look forward to seeing you in Washington D.C. for the annual SPS meeting.

Venue:

Marriott Wardman Park
2660 Woodley Rd NW,
Washington, DC 20008

Come and see us for an ion channel talk at booth #113. Read more about the event here.

Channelopathy 2018

Join us and 180 peers in this international conference on ion channel diseases with emphasis on sharing the latest discoveries and technologies.

Venue: Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago

Read more about the event here.

Neuroscience 2018

Hope to see you in San Diego in November for the annual SfN meeting. You can find us at booth #1933. Want to know more about Neuroscience click here.

You will get a chance to see our latest product – the QPatch II. Please visit our booth and ask for a demo.

Mads P G Korsgaard, global product manager, Sophion Bioscience A/S will be giving a presentation:

Title: Cutting-edge screening for ion channels: Na_V1.1 Case Study

Presentation time: Sunday November 4, 2018

2:00 PM at the Charles River booth #2519

Poster sessions:

Ligand-activation of GABA_A receptors on the automated patch clamp platforms QPatch and Qube 384 using conventional electrophysiology and optopharmacology

Application scientist, Melanie Schupp

Presentation time: Sunday, November 4, 2018, 2:00 PM – 3 PM, Poster board: D40

High-throughput screening of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived motor neurons on Qube and QPatch

Application scientist, Daniel Sauter

Presentation time: Monday, November 5, 2018, 8:00 AM –  9:00 AM, Poster board: B27

Japanese Safety Pharmacology Society 9th Annual Meeting

We look forward to JSPS 9^th annual meeting at The University of Tokyo, Yayoi Auditorium. You can find the entire program here.

You can meet with our ion channel experts at our booth #I at the Yayoi Auditorium. We are participating in the stamp rally.

Poster Presentation

On Saturday, 10th February between 11.30 AM and 12.30 PM, Dr. Kazuya Tsurudome will present a poster titled:

Voltage and current clamp recordings from human iPS cell-derived cardiomyocytes on 384-channel automated patch-clamp system

Poster board no. 16

A list of all poster presented at JSPS can be found here.

SLAS2018

This year you can meet the following Sophion people:

• Richard Kondo, sales manager, North America
• Weifeng Yu, director of customer support, North America
• Daniel Sauter, applications scientist, North America
• Thomas Binzer, vice president – R&d & Marketing

On Wednesday, February 7, 2018, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM Daniel Sauter will be presenting a poster titled (Poster Number 1319-E-):

HT Automation for patch clamp based primary screen for Na_V1.1 using Qube384

Read more about SLAS2018 here.

Sophion User Meeting, Boston – Save the date!

We are still working with the agenda but can, at this point, reveal that we have the pleasure of having Julie Klint, Lundbeck as one of several speakers. Julie will give a talk titled: Finding Na_V1.1 activators – development and validation of a HTS suitable assay on the Qube. Also Noah Shuart from Xenon will be giving a talk.

Venue:

Hilton Boston/Woburn, 2 Forbes Rd. Woburn, MA 01801

Agenda:

April 10th

11.30 AM        Registration and lunch buffet

01.00 PM        Dr Kelly Gatfield, GSK: Tools for drug discovery: Early safety profiling and electrophysiology platforms for reducing attrition

01.30 PM        Dr Julie Klint, Lundbeck: Finding Na_V1.1 activators – development and validation of a HTS suitable assay for the Qube 384

02.00 PM        Dr Noah Shuart, Xenon: Using Qube to assess IPSC neuronal sodium currents and studying mechanism of VSD4 binding ligands in heterologous expression systems

02.30 PM        Coffee break

03.00 PM        Bryan Koci, Eurofins: Optimization of cardiac safety pharmacology assay on the QPatch HT

03.30 PM        Dr Kris Kahlig, Praxis Precision Medicines: Benchmarking Eleclazine: Biophysical characterization of a cardiac late I_Na inhibitor

04.00 PM        Dr Mads P G Korsgaard, Sophion Bioscience A/S: Update on Qube 384

04.30 PM        Dr Daniel Sauter, Sophion Bioscience, Inc.: Light stimulated electrophysiology on Qube: applications for ligand-gated ion channels

05.30 PM        Wine tasting and tapas

April 11th

08.30 AM        Registration and coffee

09.00 AM        Dr Kathryn Henckels, Amgen: Development of a TMEM16A QPatch assay for assessing small molecule antagonists

09.30 AM        Dr Robert Petroski, Dart: Using the QPatch HTX for lead optimization of ligand-gated ion channels

10.00 AM        Coffee break

10.30 AM        Dr Haoyu Zeng, Merck: Systematic Performance Comparison between QPatch and PatchXpress for Cardiac Ion Channel Assays, and GLP-readiness Evaluation of QPatch for the CiPA Paradigm

11.00 AM        Dr Rasmus B Jacobsen, Sophion Bioscience A/S: QPatch, Past, Present and Future

11.30 AM        Lunch at hotel

01.00 PM        Open house at our new premises

05.00 PM        Wrap-up

Sponsor:

Use this link for room booking at Hilton, Woburn.

Local hotels:

Hilton Boston/Woburn
2 Forbes Road, Woburn, MA
Phone: +1 781-932-0999

Crowne Plaza Boston/Woburn
15 Middlesex Canal Park Drive, Woburn, MA
Phone: +1 781-935-8760

Comfort Inn Boston/Woburn
14 Hill St, Woburn, MA 01801
Phone: +1 781-933-5363

Biophysical Society 62nd Annual Meeting

We look forward to Biophysics 2018 where we will be doing a lot of activities:

First of all you can meet with our ion channel experts at our booth #518 at the Moscone Center.

Satellite Meeting

Friday, 16th February Sophion will be hosting the annually recurring satellite meeting, Drug Discovery for Ion Channels. 

See the agenda for the meeting here and make sure to sign up as the spaces are limited. 

Beer Tasting & Dinner

Saturday, 17th February we have the pleasure of inviting you to an informal evening of beer tasting, good food and great networking at the Bartlett Hall in San Francisco.

Make sure to sign up for this event here. Limited number of seats so be quick.

Ion Channel Mini Symposium

Tuesday, 20th February we will be having a short meeting at the conference center with the presentation title: Drug discovery and electrophysiological characterization using automated patch clamp (QPatch).

Venue: Room 6, Moscone Center, San Francisco – sign up here for the meeting:

10:30 – 11:00
Dr Damian Bell, Iontas Ltd.
Efficient ion channel cell line generation using MaxCyte electroporation and QPatch validation

11:00 – 11:30
Dr Daniel Sauter, Application Scientist, Sophion Bioscience A/S
Induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (Cor.4U) characterized on an automated planar patch clamp set up (QPatch HT)

11:30 – 12:00
Dr Alan Wickenden, Scientific Director & Fellow, Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology, Janssen R&D, L.L.C
NaViGATING the long and winding road to new analgesics: Discovery of potent, selective, closed-state peptide Nav1.7 blockers

Refreshments will be served.

Poster Presentation

Wednesday, 21st February between 10.30 AM and 11.30 AM, Dr Daniel Sauter will present a poster titled:

Induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (Cor.4U) characterized on an automated planar patch clamp setup (QPatch HT)

Poster board no. B301

Sophion Seminar & Workshop – Japan

You are invited to the Sophion Seminar & Workshop in Japan at Sophion Bioscience K.K.’s premises:

Venue

Waseda Research Park
1011 Nishitomida, Honjo, Saitama 367-0035, Japan

Programme

10:00          Registration

10:30          Welcome remarks and safety briefing
Dr. Yuji Tsurubuchi, Country Manager, Sophion Bioscience K.K., Japan

10:40          New ownership and future strategy at Sophion (tentative)
Mr. Thais Johansen, CEO, Sophion Bioscience A/S, Denmark

11:00          Educational lecture: Redox Physiology of TRP channels
Prof. Yasuo Mori, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Department of Synthetic Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan

12:00          Lunch break and new Sophion K.K. lab tour
Each participant is assigned to either group A or B at the time of registration. The tour starts at 12:00 and 12:45 for group A and B, respectively. Lunch is served for group A after the tour.

13:30          Potency of ReproNeuro “Human iPS derived neurons” in the drug discovery support
Dr. Makoto Honda, ReproCELL, Inc., Japan

13:50          iPS derived human cells; iCel®, MyCell® DDP/ “disease in a dish” and ideas of application for drug discovery
Dr. Ko Zushida, Cellular Dynamics International Japan Co., Ltd.

14:20          Using the QPatch HTX to drive drug discovery: ligand-gated ion channels
Dr. Robert E. Petroski, Scientist IV/Manager Neurophysiology, Dart Neuroscience LLC, USA

15:00          Coffee break

15:30          Targeting T-type calcium channel for anti-pain drug discovery
Dr. Norio Hashimoto, Nissan Chemical Industries, Ltd., Japan

16:10          Exemplar of optical recording from neural and cardiac activities
Mr. Kenji Tsubokura, Brain Vision Co., Ltd., Japan

16:30          CiPA – novel drug safety assessment
Ms. Melanie Schupp, Application Scientist, Sophion Bioscience A/S, Denmark

16:50          Closing remarks
Mr. Naoto Ueda, President & CEO, Physio-Tech Co., Ltd., Japan

16.55          Bus transportation to the venue of reception

17:30          Reception (food and beverages are served)
Saitama Grand Hotel Honjo

19:30          Bus transportation to Honjo Waseda Station

Sophion User Meeting – Paris

We are happy to invite you to our European Sophion User Meeting on 7th and 8th September and we are very pleased to announce that Sanofi in Paris kindly has offered to host the meeting this year.

We are preparing an interesting programme starting at noon on 7th September giving everyone a chance to travel to Paris in the morning. Wrap-up on 8th September just around lunchtime.

À bientôt

Sponsors:

Safety Pharmacology Society annual meeting

Hope to see you at the annual Safety Pharmacology Meeting 2017 in Berlin. Meet us at booth #113 and speak with our ion channel experts on site.

When:  24th to 27th September

Venue: Maritim Hotel Berlin

Poster presentation (Poster #022)
Temperature effect on hERG channel pharmacology measured by using the Qube automated patch clamp system.

Abstract:

The human ether-à-go-go related gene (hERG) function is important for cardiac repolarization and inhibition of the channel can prolong the cardiac action potential, which give increased risk for ventricular arrhythmias including torsade des points (TdP). Therefore, In vitro evaluations of the compound effects is performed on the hERG channel routinely in drug development projects to detect potential arrhythmic side-effects.

Usually these compound measurements are carried out at ambient temperatures. Previously it has been shown that the potency for many compounds have been underestimated when compared to near physiological temperature tests. Therefore, a temperature controlled measuring environment is beneficial when testing compounds for the aims as mentioned here.

Until recently, the only possibility to test compound potency under voltage control conditions has been the manual patch clamp technique. Now automated patch clamp instruments with temperature control have come available making it possible to perform up to 384 parallel recordings at controlled temperatures ranging from 18°C and above.

Here we used an automated patch clamp system, Qube, to study the effect of temperature on concentration response relationships on a panel of compounds known to block the hERG channel. Qube has a temperature controlled test environment and in these studies, we show that temperature merits being taken into consideration when evaluating for hERG potency.

Neuroscience

See you at Neuroscience 2017, the world’s largest neuroscience conference for scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. You can find us at booth #823 where we look forward to meet you for an ion channel talk.

Venue:  Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC