{"617166":{"#nid":"617166","#data":{"type":"news","title":"PatcherBot Going to Market","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor decades, a laboratory technique called patch clamping has been the gold standard for measuring the electrical properties of individual cells.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe process, which has been particularly useful in neuroscience, involves bringing a pipette filled with electrolyte solution and a recording electrode connected to an amplifier, into contact with the membrane of a single cell. So basically, researchers can eavesdrop on the furtive chattering of neurons in the ongoing effort to unlock the brain\u0026rsquo;s secrets.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Thousands of people practice this technique every day around the world,\u0026rdquo; says Craig Forest, a researcher in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech. \u0026ldquo;But it is painfully tedious and time consuming.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESo \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/pbl.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EForest and his colleagues\u003C\/a\u003E decided to speed things up a bit. And now, their automated patch clamping robot \u0026ndash; the \u0026lsquo;patcherBot\u0026rsquo; \u0026ndash; is being commercialized and will be made available to researchers worldwide with the signed licensing agreement between Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) and Sensapex, an electrophysiology device company based in Finland.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;This is exciting, because this technology is going from the lab, from some research journal articles, into the real world,\u0026rdquo; says Forest, associate professor in Tech\u0026rsquo;s Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and in the Coulter Department for Biomedical Engineering at Tech and Emory University.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Our mission is to develop tools that make new science possible,\u0026rdquo; he adds.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EForest\u0026rsquo;s lab has been working on iterations of the patcherBot for at least six years, developing an image guidance version to target cells and automation technology to create a tight seal between the glass pipette (one micron in diameter) and the cell membrane, which provides a direct electrical connection to the inside of the cell.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn 2016 the research team overturned decades of dogma in the field, developing a \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.rh.gatech.edu\/news\/583105\/robotic-cleaning-technique-could-automate-neuroscience-research\u0022\u003Erobotic technique for reusing the pipettes\u003C\/a\u003E \u0026ndash; for years, went the assumption, these tiny glass tubes could only be used once and were then thrown away. Ilya Kolb, a former graduate student in Forest\u0026rsquo;s lab, questioned this and set out to find a cleaning method, now patent pending, that could adequately sterilize the pipettes.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Traditionally, a researcher could do five to 10 recordings a day, and that\u0026rsquo;s if they\u0026rsquo;re really good,\u0026rdquo; Forest says. \u0026ldquo;Our idea was to clean the pipette automatically after each recording, so we could tell the robot to go back to cells over and over. You don\u0026rsquo;t even have to be in the room, just set it up and leave, and when you come back to the lab, you\u0026rsquo;ve recorded about 100 cells.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ENow, a researcher in a biology lab doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be an expert in pipette pulling or patch clamping, says Forest, who has talked about the technology \u0026ldquo;democratizing this area of research,\u0026rdquo; and sees the potential of patch clamping becoming as commonplace as PCR (polymerase chain reaction), a common biology technique to make many copies of DNA.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESensapex already has a customer \u0026ndash; the first patcherBot will be delivered in April 2019 to Janelia Research Campus, one of the world\u0026rsquo;s leading neuroscience research centers, part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. And Forest\u0026rsquo;s former grad student, Kolb, is now a researcher at Janelia, which has been on a 10-year optogenetic mission to develop fluorescent molecules \u0026ndash; optogenetics uses light to control neurons that have been genetically modified to express light-sensitive ion channels.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAt the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in October, where 30,000 neuro-researchers will gather in Chicago, Sensapex will have the patcherBot on display.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=4\u0026amp;v=OfhXAxIpsuA\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESee the patcherBot in action\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Automation technology developed in lab of Georgia Tech researcher Craig Forest being commercialized"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAutomation technology developed in lab of Georgia Tech researcher Craig Forest being commercialized\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Automation technology developed in lab of Georgia Tech researcher Craig Forest being commercialized"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2019-02-01 17:32:18","changed_gmt":"2019-02-01 17:32:18","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2019-02-01T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2019-02-01T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"617163":{"id":"617163","type":"image","title":"Craig Forest and Ilya Kolb","body":null,"created":"1549041850","gmt_created":"2019-02-01 17:24:10","changed":"1549041850","gmt_changed":"2019-02-01 17:24:10","alt":"","file":{"fid":"234888","name":"patch-clamp4296 copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/patch-clamp4296%20copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/patch-clamp4296%20copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":324970,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/patch-clamp4296%20copy.jpg?itok=8U6p9q-9"}},"617162":{"id":"617162","type":"image","title":"Craig Forest","body":null,"created":"1549041790","gmt_created":"2019-02-01 17:23:10","changed":"1549041790","gmt_changed":"2019-02-01 17:23:10","alt":"","file":{"fid":"234887","name":"Craig and Bot.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Craig%20and%20Bot.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Craig%20and%20Bot.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2725826,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Craig%20and%20Bot.jpg?itok=XCEMXngF"}},"617161":{"id":"617161","type":"image","title":"Ilya","body":null,"created":"1549041744","gmt_created":"2019-02-01 17:22:24","changed":"1549041744","gmt_changed":"2019-02-01 17:22:24","alt":"","file":{"fid":"234886","name":"ilyak.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ilyak.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ilyak.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":299339,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ilyak.jpg?itok=qViI4Ipl"}},"617164":{"id":"617164","type":"image","title":"patcherBot","body":null,"created":"1549041889","gmt_created":"2019-02-01 17:24:49","changed":"1549041889","gmt_changed":"2019-02-01 17:24:49","alt":"","file":{"fid":"234889","name":"patch-clamp4251 copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/patch-clamp4251%20copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/patch-clamp4251%20copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":277038,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/patch-clamp4251%20copy.jpg?itok=yGa4h2wU"}}},"media_ids":["617163","617162","617161","617164"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"126571","name":"go-PetitInstitute"},{"id":"126591","name":"go-NeuralEngineering"},{"id":"172970","name":"go-neuro"},{"id":"126201","name":"go-neural"},{"id":"180366","name":"patch clamping"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nCommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["Jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}