Researchers at Yale University have published groundbreaking work. Dr Reza Ghovanloo and colleagues in Prof. Stephen Waxman’s lab have taken highly prized dorsal root ganglion (DRG) nociceptive neuronal recordings from the very low throughput manual patch clamp technique onto the Qube high-throughput automated patch clamp.

Their methods will revolutionize the quantity and quality of the data obtainable from these pain pathway neurons, providing invaluable insights into the physiology of pain sensation.

The authors from Waxman Stephen‘s lab at Yale University sum it up better than we can:

“In this proof-of-concept study, we applied adaptations to an automated high-throughput electrophysiological platform to the study of DRG neurons, which provides a model of neuronal cell types that manifests a high degree of diversity, and is relevant to pain, a global unmet medical need. However, this approach is applicable for the study of other excitable cell types”

“This approach allows a blinded, unbiased, simultaneous, high-throughput, and comprehensive VC [voltage clamp] investigation of freshly isolated neurons, immediately after tissue dissociation. Moreover, CC [current clamp] analysis can be carried out following VC study, on the same neuron, in a high-throughput mode. This approach provides a basis for the high-throughput physiological and pharmacological study of a variety of types of channels and receptors within multiple types of freshly isolated neurons”

Congratulations to Reza Ghovanloo, Sidharth Tyagi, Peng Zhao, Emre Kiziltug, Mark Estacion, Sulayman D. Dib-Hajj and Stephen G. Waxman on this seminal publication.