$227,000 Sunshine Project Grant for Gene Expression and Cell Separation Equipment.
Humans have tens of thousands of genes, and Microarrays Chip with 70,000+ genes will make it possible to examine the expression of these genes at once taking a small volume of blood or tissue from patients. Microarrays are one of the key tools in genomic research, allowing researchers to identify specific subtypes within an overall disease category based on differences in gene expression.
Physicians and researchers are beginning to use information from microarrays to determine profiles relevant to diagnosis and treatment and ultimately which will most likely yield beneficial results for particular patients.
For example, today as a result of the microarray, testing for elevated expression of certain genes can assist in predicting cancer outcomes, and in assigning appropriate treatment programs. Microarray technology has also been used widely to examine global gene-expression changes in disease, thereby shedding additional light on the complex nature of many conditions.
Normally, 7-8% of human body weight is from blood. Blood is a highly specialized tissue composed of more than 4,000 different kinds of components. Four of the most important ones are red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma. Robosep helps in isolating different cells types with 98% purity. Different cell types can then be isolated in subtypes for example, white blood cells have natural killer cells (NK cells) (which function in cell-mediated, cytotoxic innate immunity), T cells (for cell-mediated, cytotoxic adaptive immunity), and B cells (for humoral, antibody-driven adaptive immunity) and Monocytes. Analysis of these cells would help in understanding the immune system and designing therapies based on the needs of the patients.
Robosep would empower us to isolate these and other cell types and perform different assays, which would help in immunologic research, drug discovery and development. We can also develop the cell based assays and see the expression of different genes in each cell type, using microarray chip technology.
OMI is working towards finding markers for lesser known diseases, as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lyme and others which are hard to diagnose. This tool will help physicians in characterizing and understanding the patient’s conditions better and treat patients not just according to their symptoms, but also according to their molecular makeup and based on their gene expression data.