Biochips and Patch Hole Technology
Biochips for our patch-clamp solutions are developed and manufactured in-house: QPlate, for use with QPatch, and QChip, for use with Qube 384.
The heart of the biochips is the planar patch hole substrate, which replaces conventional glass pipettes in manual patch clamping.
Silicon for true gigaseals
In the QPlate it is a silicon-based patch hole utilizing an advanced and exclusive technology developed and owned by Sophion. The patch hole enables the routine formation of genuine gigaseals in physiological solutions, ensuring uncompromised data quality.
Polymers for maximal flexibility
In the QChip the patch hole substrate is polymer based and is the key to offer high-quality data at a reduced site footprint while ensuring flexibility to customize patch hole numbers and patch hole sizes. This flexibility can be used for optimizing high throughput screens on any cell and ion channel if necessary.
Microfluidic ensure fast and complete liquid exchange
A unique feature of QPlate and QChip 384 is the compound application principle, which is based on advanced microfluidic flow channels that leads compounds and buffers to the cell. Each site has its own flow channel that enables both fast and reproducible liquid exchange with a well-defined compound concentration, effectively increasing throughput and reducing the cost per data point.
Embedded electrodes – No drift – no maintenance
Embedded single-use silver-chloride electrodes ensure superior voltage control, reduce the risk of cross-contamination, and completely eliminate the need for maintenance.
In summary, these features make our biochips ideal for experiments with current-clamp recordings as well as voltage- and ligand-gated ion channels.