Preparative-Scale Microfabricated Capillary Electrophoresis
Introduction The demand for precise, high throughput protein separation is increasing due to both the growing number of protein based therapeutics being developed and the emphasis on proteomic analysis in research and drug discovery applications. The established technologies are electrophoresis and liquid chromatography (LC). Electrophoresis enables a sharp separation of individual proteins from complex mixtures but it is restricted to small sample volumes. This precision of separation can’t be matched by LC but large sample volumes can be accommodated. Technology description UW researchers have created an electrophoresis system that can separate proteins quickly with ultrafine resolution and with the native protein structure and conformation conserved. Unlike traditional capillary electrophresis, that can only handle nanogram to microgram protein samples, this technology can handle preparative samples at the milligram level. The heat and sample flow issues that have hindered previous attempts to increase the sample volume by enlarging the capillary cross section have been overcome. Business opportunity Protein separation and analysis is an area of growth in the research and drug discovery tools marketplace. The industrial protein separation market is estimated to be greater than $1 billion per year, laboratory protein separation represents an approximately $700 million opportunity, and proteomics tools account for an almost $1.5 billion annual market. Stage of development A prototype microfluidic system has been fabricated and tested. Device designs are being optimized for both fluid flow and heat dissipation properties. Intellectual property position The UW has applied for worldwide patent protection for this invention.Type of Offer: Licensing
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