 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2010 [1] |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, UK |
| Services | Research and Development |
| Website | spherefluidics |
Sphere Fluidics is a Cambridge(UK)-based Life Sciences R&D company that specializes in biopharmaceutical discovery and development, cell therapy engineering, bioproduction and synthetic biology, analysis and isolation. The company is reported to own 25 patented products that include instruments, biochips, and specialist chemicals. [2] [3]
Sphere Fluidics was originally established in 2010, by two chemistry professors of Cambridge University, namely, Professor Chris Abell and Professor Wilhelm Huck, Dr. Frank F. Craig, an entrepreneur, and Dr. Maher Khaled, a Cambridge University Enterprise executive, as founders. [2] [4] [5]
November 2021: Sphere Fluidics raised $40M led by Paris-based Sofinnova Partners and San Francisco-based Redmile Group. [6]
The total funds raised by Sphere Fluidics as of 2021, is reported to be, £46.7 million through various funding rounds, loans and grants. [6] [4] [3] [5]
Cyto-Mine is a patented single cell analysis and characterisation system by Sphere Fluidics. This technology is said to aid the development of biotherapeutics for treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases and vaccine generation. Cyto-Mine is said to be an integrated device which can automatically perform single cell analysis, sorting, imaging and dispensing into individual wells of microtiter plates in a single compact system. [7] [8] [4]
In 2019, Sphere Fluidics in partnership with Peak Analysis and Automation (PAA) introduced Integrated Microplate Handling and Single Cell Analysis Capabilities. The addition of S-LAB to the Cyto-Mine provides researchers with a further streamlined solution for single cell analysis in biopharmaceutical workflows. [9]
On 10 November 2021, Sphere Fluidics in partnership with ClexBio gave away 10 CYTRIX microfluidic hydrogel kits containing the novel CYTRIX hydrogel, Pico-Surf™ surfactant and Sphere Fluidics’ Pico-Gen™ double aqueous biochip, giving a plug-and-play system for microfluidic single-cell hydrogel encapsulation, marking the celebration of World Science Day for Peace and Development. [10]
2013 : ACES Life Science Award [11] [5]
2015: UK's top 50 disruptive SMEs by Real Business [12] [13]
Microfluidics refers to a system that manipulates a small amount of fluids using small channels with sizes ten to hundreds micrometres. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves molecular analysis, molecular biology, and microelectronics. It has practical applications in the design of systems that process low volumes of fluids to achieve multiplexing, automation, and high-throughput screening. Microfluidics emerged in the beginning of the 1980s and is used in the development of inkjet printheads, DNA chips, lab-on-a-chip technology, micro-propulsion, and micro-thermal technologies.
In vitro toxicity testing is the scientific analysis of the toxic effects of chemical substances on cultured bacteria or mammalian cells. In vitro testing methods are employed primarily to identify potentially hazardous chemicals and/or to confirm the lack of certain toxic properties in the early stages of the development of potentially useful new substances such as therapeutic drugs, agricultural chemicals and food additives.
Digital microfluidics (DMF) is a platform for lab-on-a-chip systems that is based upon the manipulation of microdroplets. Droplets are dispensed, moved, stored, mixed, reacted, or analyzed on a platform with a set of insulated electrodes. Digital microfluidics can be used together with analytical analysis procedures such as mass spectrometry, colorimetry, electrochemical, and electrochemiluminescense.
A hydrogel is a biphasic material, a mixture of porous, permeable solids and at least 10% by weight or volume of interstitial fluid composed completely or mainly by water. In hydrogels the porous permeable solid is a water insoluble three dimensional network of natural or synthetic polymers and a fluid, having absorbed a large amount of water or biological fluids. These properties underpin several applications, especially in the biomedical area. Many hydrogels are synthetic, but some are derived from nature. The term 'hydrogel' was coined in 1894.
In molecular biology, biochips are engineered substrates that can host large numbers of simultaneous biochemical reactions. One of the goals of biochip technology is to efficiently screen large numbers of biological analytes, with potential applications ranging from disease diagnosis to detection of bioterrorism agents. For example, digital microfluidic biochips are under investigation for applications in biomedical fields. In a digital microfluidic biochip, a group of (adjacent) cells in the microfluidic array can be configured to work as storage, functional operations, as well as for transporting fluid droplets dynamically.
A lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single integrated circuit of only millimeters to a few square centimeters to achieve automation and high-throughput screening. LOCs can handle extremely small fluid volumes down to less than pico-liters. Lab-on-a-chip devices are a subset of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices and sometimes called "micro total analysis systems" (µTAS). LOCs may use microfluidics, the physics, manipulation and study of minute amounts of fluids. However, strictly regarded "lab-on-a-chip" indicates generally the scaling of single or multiple lab processes down to chip-format, whereas "µTAS" is dedicated to the integration of the total sequence of lab processes to perform chemical analysis.
Sartorius AG is an international pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment supplier, covering the segments of Bioprocess Solutions and Lab Products & Services. In September 2021, Sartorius has been admitted to the DAX, Germany's largest stock market index. As a leading partner to the biopharmaceutical research and industry, Sartorius supports its customers in the development and production of biotech drugs and vaccines - from the initial idea in the laboratory to commercial production. Sartorius conducts its operating business in the two divisions Bioprocess Solutions and Lab Products&Services. The divisions bundle their respective businesses according to the same application areas and customer groups. The divisions share some of the infrastructure and central services.
Bio-MEMS is an abbreviation for biomedical microelectromechanical systems. Bio-MEMS have considerable overlap, and is sometimes considered synonymous, with lab-on-a-chip (LOC) and micro total analysis systems (μTAS). Bio-MEMS is typically more focused on mechanical parts and microfabrication technologies made suitable for biological applications. On the other hand, lab-on-a-chip is concerned with miniaturization and integration of laboratory processes and experiments into single chips. In this definition, lab-on-a-chip devices do not strictly have biological applications, although most do or are amenable to be adapted for biological purposes. Similarly, micro total analysis systems may not have biological applications in mind, and are usually dedicated to chemical analysis. A broad definition for bio-MEMS can be used to refer to the science and technology of operating at the microscale for biological and biomedical applications, which may or may not include any electronic or mechanical functions. The interdisciplinary nature of bio-MEMS combines material sciences, clinical sciences, medicine, surgery, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, optical engineering, chemical engineering, and biomedical engineering. Some of its major applications include genomics, proteomics, molecular diagnostics, point-of-care diagnostics, tissue engineering, single cell analysis and implantable microdevices.
Cell sorting is the process through which a particular cell type is separated from others contained in a sample on the basis of its physical or biological properties, such as size, morphological parameters, viability and both extracellular and intracellular protein expression. The homogeneous cell population obtained after sorting can be used for a variety of applications including research, diagnosis, and therapy.
The centrifugal micro-fluidic biochip or centrifugal micro-fluidic biodisk is a type of lab-on-a-chip technology, also known as lab-on-a-disc, that can be used to integrate processes such as separating, mixing, reaction and detecting molecules of nano-size in a single piece of platform, including a compact disk or DVD. This type of micro-fluidic biochip is based upon the principle of microfluidics; to take advantage of non-inertial pumping for lab-on-a-chip devices using non-inertial valves and switches under centrifugal force and Coriolis effect to distribute fluids about the disks in a highly parallel order.
An organ-on-a-chip (OOC) is a multi-channel 3-D microfluidic cell culture, integrated circuit (chip) that simulates the activities, mechanics and physiological response of an entire organ or an organ system. It constitutes the subject matter of significant biomedical engineering research, more precisely in bio-MEMS. The convergence of labs-on-chips (LOCs) and cell biology has permitted the study of human physiology in an organ-specific context. By acting as a more sophisticated in vitro approximation of complex tissues than standard cell culture, they provide the potential as an alternative to animal models for drug development and toxin testing.
In the field of cellular biology, single-cell analysis and subcellular analysis is the study of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and cell–cell interactions at the single cell level. The concept of single-cell analysis originated in the 1970s. Before the discovery of heterogeneity, single-cell analysis mainly referred to the analysis or manipulation of an individual cell in a bulk population of cells at a particular condition using optical or electronic microscope. To date, due to the heterogeneity seen in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell populations, analyzing a single cell makes it possible to discover mechanisms not seen when studying a bulk population of cells. Technologies such as fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) allow the precise isolation of selected single cells from complex samples, while high throughput single cell partitioning technologies, enable the simultaneous molecular analysis of hundreds or thousands of single unsorted cells; this is particularly useful for the analysis of transcriptome variation in genotypically identical cells, allowing the definition of otherwise undetectable cell subtypes. The development of new technologies is increasing our ability to analyze the genome and transcriptome of single cells, as well as to quantify their proteome and metabolome. Mass spectrometry techniques have become important analytical tools for proteomic and metabolomic analysis of single cells. Recent advances have enabled quantifying thousands of protein across hundreds of single cells, and thus make possible new types of analysis. In situ sequencing and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) do not require that cells be isolated and are increasingly being used for analysis of tissues.
Ayoxxa Biosystems is a biotechnology company founded in 2010 in Singapore, and headquartered in Germany.
Standard BioTools Inc., previously known as Fluidigm Corp., offers analytical mass cytometry systems for flow cytometry and tissue imaging, along with associated assays and reagents, as well as an automated genomic analysis instrument and a variety of microfluidic arrays, or integrated fluidic circuits (IFCs), and consumables with fully kitted reagents. Custom assays and services are available with all systems and applications.
Microfluidic cell culture integrates knowledge from biology, biochemistry, engineering, and physics to develop devices and techniques for culturing, maintaining, analyzing, and experimenting with cells at the microscale. It merges microfluidics, a set of technologies used for the manipulation of small fluid volumes within artificially fabricated microsystems, and cell culture, which involves the maintenance and growth of cells in a controlled laboratory environment. Microfluidics has been used for cell biology studies as the dimensions of the microfluidic channels are well suited for the physical scale of cells. For example, eukaryotic cells have linear dimensions between 10 and 100 μm which falls within the range of microfluidic dimensions. A key component of microfluidic cell culture is being able to mimic the cell microenvironment which includes soluble factors that regulate cell structure, function, behavior, and growth. Another important component for the devices is the ability to produce stable gradients that are present in vivo as these gradients play a significant role in understanding chemotactic, durotactic, and haptotactic effects on cells.
Droplet-based microfluidics manipulate discrete volumes of fluids in immiscible phases with low Reynolds number and laminar flow regimes. Interest in droplet-based microfluidics systems has been growing substantially in past decades. Microdroplets offer the feasibility of handling miniature volumes of fluids conveniently, provide better mixing, encapsulation, sorting, sensing and are suitable for high throughput experiments. Two immiscible phases used for the droplet based systems are referred to as the continuous phase and dispersed phase.
Open microfluidics can be employed in the multidimensional culturing of cell types for various applications including organ-on-a-chip studies, oxygen-driven reactions, neurodegeneration, cell migration, and other cellular pathways.
Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical startup based in San Carlos, California. The company works to develop tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapies against cancer.
Hydrogel fiber is a hydrogel made into a fibrous state, where its width is significantly smaller than its length. The hydrogel's specific surface area at fibrous form is larger than that of the bulk hydrogel, and its mechanical properties also changed accordingly. As a result of these changes, hydrogel fiber has a faster matter exchange rate and can be woven into different structures.
Intestines-on-a-chip are microfluidic bioengineered 3D-models of the real organ, which better mimic physiological features than conventional 3D intestinal organoid culture. A variety of different intestine-on-a-chip models systems have been developed and refined, all holding their individual strengths and weaknesses and collectively holding great promise to the ultimate goal of establishing these systems as reliable high-throughput platforms for drug testing and personalised medicine. The intestine is a highly complex organ system performing a diverse set of vital tasks, from nutrient digestion and absorption, hormone secretion, and immunological processes to neuronal activity, which makes it particularly challenging to model in vitro.
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