How automated patch clamp technology is playing a key role for B’SYS in delivering high-quality and reliable cell lines

B’SYS is a Swiss-based niche contract research organization specializing in cell culture and biomedical research applications for ion channel drug discovery. Offering the best service and customer satisfaction is always of the highest priority at B’SYS – and Sophion Bioscience’s automated patch clamp technology is playing a key role in their journey.

The company’s first QPatch was installed in 2009 and now B‘SYS has 4 QPatch instruments running in its lab. Over the years, the collaboration has expanded and today Sophion sells a large number of the cell lines from B‘SYS.

The specific timeframe for developing a cell line all depends on its complexity. But the B’SYS team has proven time and again that the size of an organization and speed are not always connected. What’s important is having the right setup and knowledge. “It takes a lot of time and effort to produce cell lines – particularly when it comes to validation and meeting customer expectations. It’s a whole ecosystem within B’SYS to create these cell lines,” says Daniel Konrad.

The B’SYS team is very experienced in operating the Sophion instruments, and they have expert knowledge of cell cultures – the perfect setup for optimizing both instruments and cells in parallel. As the collaboration moves forward, Sophion will continue offering guidance for working with cell lines, such as how the cell lines need to be cultivated in order to get the best results with the QPatch – knowledge that B’SYS can directly transfer to its clients.

Kv1.3 current clamp assay developed on Qube 384 with Metrion Biosciences

Automated patch clamp experts: Stefano Stabilini, Senior Scientist from Metrion Biosciences, and our Sophion Application Scientist Beatrice Badone have collaborated to develop a novel current clamp assay on the Qube 384. By screening compounds against the Kv1.3 ion channel in current clamp mode, the assay allows the direct effects of the potassium channel’s modulation to be measured in terms of the changes in membrane voltage.

Dr. Eddy Stevens, Director of Drug Discovery at Metrion Biosciences posits that this membrane voltage measure, e.g. Resting Membrane Potential, RMP, is the direct translation of the channel current activity and a definition of how excitable the compound has made the cell membrane.

Thus, for Kv1.3 modulating compounds, this Qube current clamp assay will allow the drug discovery of Kv1.3 inhibitors. The inhibitor activity will functionally translate into a hyperpolarized, less excitable cell membrane in effector memory T-cells (TEM), which have been identified as driving over-activity in autoimmune diseases (such as psoriasis).

Read the full application report on the new Kv1.3 assay here

How can we encourage more women to take leading positions in science?

Meet Sandra Wilson, Head of Innovation & New Technology Development at Sophion Bioscience. We asked her; How can we encourage more women to take leading positions in science? We asked her to give us her story of when she became interested in science and how she has made it all the way to a leading position at Sophion Bioscience.

First, can you tell us a little about yourself, Sandra?

I’m Scottish and Canadian and I have lived internationally since I was 11, so I would say I have a pretty global context for life. I’m an extremely curious person and always learning, poking away at things, and trying new things out. This includes a lot of travel and meeting people.

When did you first know you wanted to work in science? 

In high school, I did an O-level in Design & Technology and one of my favorite things was to work with metal, especially casting – I found it mesmerizing, and I have always been curious about processes and how things have been made. It wasn’t clear that I wanted a scientific career until I was considering what to study and realized that I wanted something practical that also involved languages because I already spoke fluent French. I was accepted to study IT, French & Spanish but took a gap year and returned to Canada to work and watch the Winter Olympics in Calgary, loved the mountains and decided to stay. It was during that time I pivoted direction to study materials because it includes a lot of the core sciences, physics, chemistry, mechanics, and maths, and its endlessly complex, especially when I added biology at a later stage.

How has your journey been to where you are today?

When I look back on my career so far what stands out are the variety of companies, projects, and teams I have worked with internationally. Each country has had its own distinct flavor and way of approaching challenges and there are plenty of gifts in that. I’m also really proud that I studied and worked simultaneously. Work experience really helped me to get clear on what kind of impact I wanted to have next and my ongoing studies have helped support me to focus on achieving that impact. Further education doesn’t have to be done all in one continuous shot and I certainly highly recommend getting work experience along the way. Having an international career also builds a certain kind of resilience and most definitely a great network. I’m really pleased that my ongoing development as an engineer, then scientist then scientific manager has allowed me the opportunity for working in such a huge range of sectors from telecom, space to health.

Women are underrepresented in leading positions in science. Do you think that is a problem?

I think women are still underrepresented in leadership positions in science, and I see the need for focus to improve it. For example, through programs such as the WiLD program (Women in Life Science Denmark, www.womeninlifescience.dk) and mentoring programs such as CyberMentor (www.cybermentor.ca).

In general, in science, whether academic or commercial – women bring a huge amount of value and knowledge to the table and the kind of collaborative skills that pull teams together and help generate results in a very efficient way. Science can be a tough field to work in. Wins are by no means guaranteed and there are always unknowns that you are figuring out.  I think there still exists this misperception that aggression and confidence is equated with brilliance in the science world. I don’t believe it’s sustainable. It can alienate some exceptional scientists that are more shy or less confident – good science can be done with kindness and inclusion.

Can you describe your role in Sophion Bioscience?

I really enjoy my role at Sophion. It’s such a great team of people to work with and a diverse range of skills from the software development team to hardware, consumables, production, technical support, and of course the extensive range of biology knowledge the team has. Plus all of the fantastic collaborations with academia and research institutions and companies. I can’t really speak a lot about the work I do, because it’s future-focused, but Sophion is growing a lot and that tells you we have some exciting things happening and new products coming. Essentially, I focus on technology development and scientific collaborations that support the strategic goals of Sophion Bioscience as a company and everything that entails.

You collaborate with external institutions like universities and research centers. Why?

Collaborations with Danish and international universities and research institutions are key, not only because they are customers but because academics are really the experts in their fields. They ask important questions, are developing really cool and exciting methods, and bring ideas and skills. They are targeting extremely complex health science issues, so there are some great synergies for us here at Sophion. These collaborations bring excitement to the team, and they challenge us to make better and new products – making great science tools that ultimately help understand and treat disease. I think that’s a fantastic focus for a career.

You find it important to mentor women and men in their early careers. Why?

It’s been important to me to mentor throughout my career, whether it be leadership with the scouts, through Cybermentor, a Canadian program to mentor girls in high school interested in careers in engineering and science or informally with people that I cross paths with. It’s also important to be mentored, and that has also been a part of my journey – feedback, mirroring, and gentle challenging from trusted advisors have really helped me get clear about what I want to achieve and to help me map out pathways to get there.

Most recently I joined the Spark program, which started at Stanford but is a new program in Denmark (https://sparkdenmark.ku.dk/) that provides some funding and more importantly tailored mentoring to support academic scientists to take their brilliant inventions further toward commercialization. So, giving and receiving mentoring, in whatever form, I think is a crucial part of living up to your potential and it can be deeply enjoyable.

How do you explain the lack of women pursuing leading science positions?

I see many more women in STEAM careers now than when my career started, so that’s a good thing, but there is still a gap to getting to those leadership positions, and we need to elevate that focus and be active about resolving it. I don’t think that women are not pursuing leadership positions, I think they would jump given the chance and proper support – but leadership also has the responsibility to actively create opportunities for women to have a voice and seat at the table.

Sandra, thank you for sharing your story and helping us bring gender equality in science to the forefront today.

New software release for QPatch II available

Take full advantage of your QPatch II system(s) by upgrading to QPatch II Mars, the newest software upgrade for this platform.

QPatch ll Mars includes a variety of new features developed with great input from our users and in-house scientists. Highlights of the QPatch II Mars software features include:

Adaptive Current Clamp

Current clamp (CC) allows you to record how the ion channels set the cell’s membrane potential and how they generate e.g. action potentials in neurons and cardiomyocytes. To investigate such physiological responses on automated patch clamp, it is desirable to be able to handle each cell individually, which is now possible on QPatch II. Adaptive CC is built on the “V_xx” functionality and automatically measures and applies a unique current value for each cell. Each cell can be interrogated independently, analyzed online, and automatically exposed to individual current injections. Such individual current injection can be used to obtain a proper resting membrane potential and to evoke action potentials, that are more uniform across the QPlate.

If you are familiar with the adaptive voltage protocols, “V_xx”, then this is the current clamp ditto, and it is named “I_adapt” in the Sophion Analyzer user interface.

XY-plot of any property from your experiments

On QPatch II you can now plot any property from your experiment and from the analysis of your experiment against each other. Thereby, you have more efficient data evaluation, and it helps you find correlations.

It can be useful to visualize and detect, which properties correlate to unwanted experiments and hence should be removed from the analysis. You can use this knowledge to optimize the unbiased filtering of the data. Rather than guessing and turning on and off filters, this is much more user-friendly.

Live IT-plot on screening station during assay execution

With the live IT-plot functionality on QPatch II, you can now follow the progress of your experiment in real-time. The live IT-plots (current vs. time) shows how the ion channel current responds to compounds or voltage protocols over time. In addition, the plot shows compound name and concentration with compound info on the screening station based on the online cursor set in the voltage protocol. The same information is visible in the live sweep plot.

Additional new functionalities

There are several additional new features included in the QPatch II Mars software suite:

• Sweep subtraction has been expanded and now you can subtract all the sweeps of a step protocol from a baseline or several compound conditions.
• You can make an average of sweeps in an IV-protocol or in repeated liquid periods.
• Automatically combine slightly different experiment protocols with the same compound with liquid period groupin
• Assign any value to the baseline and full response of group Hill fi
• More current clamp analysis methods and all methods have been moved out to standard results for easier access
• Pipetting noise filter can be applied in ligand gated experiments to clean up sweep appearance
• .xls export upgraded to .xlsx which gives > 1 million rows
• E-mail to notify if a backup has failed
• Both front and back side, of the QPlate, pressure data, with 10x increased resolution

In addition to adding features to the software, we have performed software maintenance and improved the user interface for Sophion Analyzer. For example, you can now get automatic scale bars for publication grade graphs. Also, QPatch II comes with the newest Festo VTEP system and supports Oracle 19.

With the enhancements to QPatch II, you can increase the output of your ion channel research even more. Learn more about QPatch II and the new Mars software suite here: https://sophion.com/products/qpatch-ll-automated-patch-clamp/

You are also very welcome to book one of our application scientists for an online demo at: info@sophion.com or visit our labs in Copenhagen, Denmark, Boston, United States, Tokyo, Japan or Shanghai, China.

Developing iPSC ion channel recordings with automated patch clamp

Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) techniques have been developing over the last few years, improving cell differentiation and maturation. In combination with improved culturing and handling, iPSC ion channel recordings via automated patch clamp (APC) have made these model ‘adult’ differentiated cells extremely useful in biomedical research, more translatable in defining human physiology and disease, whilst reducing the need and use of animal tissue.

Over 2022, Sophion scientists, collaborators, and users of our platforms have been at the forefront of this iPSC and APC revolution. Our collaborative research is captured here:

Webinars

Mike Hendrickson (BrainXell) & Daniel Sauter on iPSC-motor neurons:

Liz Buttermore (Human Neuron Core, Boston Children’s Hospital) & Kadla Rosholm on iPSC-cortical neurons:

Will Seibertz (University Medical Center Göttingen) & Kadla Rosholm on iPSC-cardiomyocytes:

Review paper

Adventures and Advances in Time Travel With Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Automated Patch Clamp. Rosholm et al., Frontiers Mol. Neurosci., 2022: view

Are you interested in learning more about the research performed on Sophion automated patch clamp platforms and stem cells? We have gathered a list of relevant publications here

New video tutorials to help you get the best start with QPatch Compact

For our new users of QPatch Compact, we have produced five new video tutorials to help you get started with planar patch clamp experiments on QPatch Compact. Besides the new video tutorials, on the new QPatch Compact Support Site, you have access to safety instructions, user manual incl. test protocols, and troubleshooting guides.

Sussex Drug Discovery Centre and Sophion Bioscience announce new strategic partnership

Sophion Bioscience has partnered closely with Sussex Drug Discovery Centre (SDDC), based at the University of Sussex, for many years. We are now looking forward to extending our partnership, providing SDDC with wider access to our automated patch clamp technology and knowledge.

For SDDC, this partnership will strengthen their potential for research collaborations with both academic and industrial partners. Their existing structural biology, drug discovery and ion channel expertise, together with core facilities such as Cryo-EM also available at the University, mean SDDC is now ideally placed to become a centre of excellence for ion channel research.

We want to support SDDC in training, education, and inspiring the next generation of ion channel drug discovery experts. Additionally, for Sophion Bioscience, the strategic partnership will allow us to expand our field support operations in the UK by welcoming our customers to the SDDC laboratory for application development and demonstrations.

We look forward to providing even better and faster customer service to our UK automated patch clamp users, working dedicated to accelerating and pioneering ion channel research.

Would you like to book a meeting with our application specialist at SDDC?

Please contact Sarah Lilley directly or you can book a demonstration in one of our laboratories in Copenhagen, Denmark, Boston, US, and Tokyo, Japan here: https://sophion.com/about/contact-info/

Sophion-authored paper addresses the challenge of safety pharmacology in the elderly

Despite the looming problems that a growing elderly population causes drug discovery, limited, concrete solutions have been offered to address medicinal developments for the elderly. This threatens to engulf societies across the world.

In a thought-provoking review, ex-Pfizer safety pharmacology expert Bernard Fermini and Sophion scientist Damian Bell have called on the drug discovery community to open discussions and act to develop and implement adequate, robust, and safe testing of medicines for the ageing demographic.

We have made the review open access (no paywall); read the paper here.

Latest advances in stem cell recordings on APC reviewed

A Sophion authored pluripotent stem cells and APC review paper shows the much-vaunted use of hiPSC in biomedical research is drawing closer to the promise they hold for safety pharmacology, drug discovery, and personalized medicine.

Research scientist Kadla Røskva Rosholm, Ph.D., and colleagues at Sophion Bioscience, in conjunction with co-authors Prof. Niels Voigt and scientist Fitzwilliam Seibertz of the University of Göttingen have written a wide-ranging review of techniques and applications of hiPSC, developments driven by high-throughput APC.

This figure illustrates paced action potentials in 10 individual hiPSC-cardiomyocyte current clamp recordings from a single measurement QPlate. The expanded action potential shows typical AP characterization measurements: threshold potential (Vt), peak potential (Vp), hyperpolarization potential (Vh), and action potential duration at 90% repolarization (APD90).

View the full, open access paper here

Successful hERG recordings at 22°C and 35°C on QPatch II

When conducting your ion channel experiments a key environmental factor to consider is temperature. In this latest application report, the conductance, kinetics and pharmacology of the hERG ion channel current, a critical component of the cardiac action potential, were recorded at 22°C and 35°C.

Like nearly all physiological processes, the activity and pharmacology of ion channels are highly dependent on temperature. Whether making ion channel recordings at mammalian body temperature (~35°C) or simply a consistent room temperature (RT), it is imperative to accurately control the temperature of your recordings. Even ‘simply’ ensuring all your recordings are not subject to the particular vagaries of the lab’s diurnal/seasonal micro-climate can be challenging. With temperature control, by setting the recording site to RT means accurately recording and reporting at 22°C, not the 18-27°C that we all know can be the real world lab RT.

If you want to learn more about temperature control on Sophion’s platforms, read more here

Collaborative paper on antibodies neutralizing cobratoxin published by the University of Toronto, Technical University of Denmark and Sophion Bioscience

Snakebite affects some of the poorest populations across the globe and was designated a neglected tropical disease (World Health Organisation, 2017).

In further seminal developments, Sophion has helped to develop and characterize the next generation of monoclonal antibodies to neutralize a key alpha-cobratoxin in the venom of the monocled cobra. The antibodies were discovered and developed via phage display by collaborators at the University of Toronto and the Technical University of Denmark. Their in vitro functional, neutralizing effect on the nicotinic acetyl choline receptor (nAChR) ion channel was determined on QPatch II.

Find the paper published in Protein Science here

Assessment of the in vitro neutralization potency of the top two IgGs was performed via electrophysiological measurements using whole cell patch-clamp. The blockade of ACh-dependent currents by purified α-CTx was reversed by pre-incubation of the toxin with serial dilutions of blocking IgG. Signals were normalized to full response (in the absence of α-CTx and IgG).

Ion Channels and Cancer

Ion channels are critical signaling proteins in all of the main hallmarks of cancer – see image above. Indeed, Prof. Saverio Gentile of the University of Illinois, Chicago, has pithily defined this inextricable connection as ‘a channelopathy called cancer’.

Sophion are at the forefront of ion channel research supporting and collaborating with world-leading oncochannelopathy labs, including hosting presentations on their findings at our Ion Channel Modulation Symposia, User Meetings & webinars.

Links to recordings of these lectures are given below.

Ion Channels and Cancer

Prof. Annarosa Archangeli, ICMS 2017, ‘hERG Channels: From anti-targets to novel targets for cancer therapy’

Dr Luis Pardo, ICMS 2017, ‘Kv10.1 and the cell cycle: A two-way road’

Prof. Mustafa Djamgoz, ICMS 2019, ‘In vivo evidence for expression of voltage-gated sodium channels in cancer and potentiation of metastasis’

Prof. Saverio Gentile, User Meeting 2021, ‘Targeting potassium channels in cancer from cell signaling to precision medicine

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.

Virtual User Meeting hosted by Sophion NA

We had a fantastic slate of speakers representing a variety of different industries each presenting their experiences with automated patch clamping. These presentations were followed by a live demo of the QPatch II 48 Automated Patch-Clamp Instrument with a focus on the Temperature Control features. A big thank you to Application Scientist Melanie Schupp and Product Manager Mads Korsgaard for staying late in Ballerup in order to run the demo.

The meeting was well attended with over 50 external participants representing 27 separate institutions. We were thrilled to see attendees from all over the globe, with many calling in from Europe and even Japan.

Thanks also go to all of our speakers who did a fantastic job presenting their research in an engaging way in this new virtual environment, Daniel who did an excellent job of running the program, Schuyler who set up the WebEx platform and managed the production, and Daniel, Sung, and Weifeng for recruiting such a good group of speakers both from the industry as well as academia.

​​​The one thing we will need to work on for our next virtual User Meeting is to figure out how we can get the participants a round of Lord Hobo beer for the annual User Meeting beer tasting event!

If you take a picture of the QR code below you will have the opportunity to open it and see the agenda and the speaker bios.

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.

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.

ICMS2018 – thank you very much

We would like to thank you for participating at the 3rd Sophion Ion Channel Modulation Symposium in Cambridge last week. We truly appreciate that you took the time to attend and we hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did. A special thanks to our sponsors; Roche, MaxCyte, SB Drug Discovery, B’SYS, Charles River and Metrion for being part of ICMS2018. And last but not least a huge thanks to the speakers and the advisory board whom all contributed making the event a success. See you on 19th and 20th June next year.

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.

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

See some of the great talks from ICMS 2017 in Cambridge

We have the pleasure of sharing with you some of the great talks from the Sophion Ion Channel Modulation Symposium which took place in Cambridge in June.

See the talks here.

Enjoy

Sophion Bioscience is acquired by Sophion CEO, management and investors

Sophion Bioscience has been acquired by Sophion CEO Thais T. Johansen, its management and a group of experienced investors.

Sophion was founded in 2000 as a spinoff from Neurosearch and have since the beginning been pioneering ion channel research and drug discovery. In 2004 Sophion launched the QPatch automated patch clamp solution, which still today is benchmark for advanced electrophysiology and cardiac safety in drug discovery. In 2013 Sophion Qube was launched taking automated patch clamp to the HTS space and taking automated patch clamping to a whole new level of usability. In between Sophion has continuously improved performance and capabilities and launched pioneering new features such as automated Rs compensation, automated current clamp, integrated cell preparation, etc.

Sophion was in 2011 acquired by Biolin Scientific Holding AB, a company owned by Swedish private equity firm Ratos AB.

Sophion CEO Thais Johansen states “Our new ownership structure and financial partners bring a long-term orientation and expertise in building a high-growth life science business. With this involvement, we are well-positioned to continue investing in innovation, technologies and people”.

Thais also said, “we will continue to build on the Sophion legacy with focus on quality, innovation and customer satisfaction” and continues “I am looking forward to talk to our partners over the next weeks to discuss these changes as well as discuss the many great news we have in pipeline”.

Sophion Bioscience employs approximately 60 people worldwide. It is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark and has subsidiaries in Boston, Tokyo and Shanghai, as well as distributors in Japan, India and Korea. Sophion has an install base of 100+ automated patch clamp systems and presence in more than 75% of the TOP20 largest Pharma companies in the world.

Sophion Bioscience, Inc. is in the building

ICMS2017 – thanks everyone for contributing

Another great Sophion Ion Channel Modulation Symposium meeting at the amazing Clare College. Knowledge sharing, socializing and presentations of new discoveries in our field from the top notch researchers from academia and pharma industry. …. and good food and beer not to mention. Great way to spend a week. ICMS2018 already in pipeline.