BLOC project

Benchtop NMR for lab-on a-chip

Technology and objective

Recent advances in tissue engineering offer new approaches to metabolic disease modelling and drug discovery by providing biologically relevant models of tissues and organs in vitro integrated with sensing technology. This technology has the potential to revolutionise the pharmaceutical industry by enabling reliable and high predictive in vitro testing of chemical compounds. The capability to miniaturise microfluidic systems and advanced tissue fabrication procedures have enabled researchers to create multiple 3D in vitro models with a high degree of control over experimental variables for high-content screening applications. BLOC objective is to develop a benchtop spectrometer based on magnetic resonance spectroscopy and imaging using dynamic nuclear polarisation (DNP-MR). The integration of this technology with tissue engineering systems will be applied to monitor disease and evaluate responses to different stimulus. As a proof-of-concept, this project will fabricate a biomimetic model composed of liver spheroids and pancreatic islets and develop the necessary DNP-MR hardware and software to study metabolic diseases.

Applications and impact

The technology derived from this project will have a direct impact in the society and the public opinion since it will allow a significant reduction on the use of animals for experimentation purposes, minimizing ethical issues related with this topic. Moreover, the use of human engineered tissues will bring pre-clinical experiments more accurate and efficient, facilitating the extrapolation of results to humans.

The idea is to create a standardized and small device which can be easily installed in any laboratory. Besides being used in the biomedical field, the equipment developed in this project will be an easy-to-use and low-cost system with potential applications in other areas, as environmental control and chemical industry.

Consortium

INSTITUTE FOR BIOENGINEERING OF CATALONIA (IBEC)
Spain
Carrer BALDIRI REIXAC 10-12
08028 Barcelona

OXFORD INSTRUMENTS
United Kingdom
TUBNEY WOODS
Abingdon OX13 5QX

MULTIWAVE
Switzerland
3 CHEMIN DU PRE FLEURI, Geneva 1228

INSTITUT D’INVESTIGACIONS BIOMEDIQUES AUGUST PI I SUNYER (IDIBAPS)
Spain
Carrer ROSSELLÓ, 149 Barcelona 08036

News

Landmark in Real-Time Metabolic Monitoring on Chip: BLOC Benchtop NMR comes to light

In a significant advancement for lab-on-chip technology, BLOC researchers have demonstrated the first integration of a benchtop nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer with a microfluidic cell culture platform capable of real-time metabolic monitoring, made feasible by employing quantum-enhanced NMR techniques to dramatically increase signal sensitivity.

Great success of BLOC Symposium and Workshop

Last week, after the final project meeting, took place the BLOC Symposium and Workshop at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) with very interesting talks and a hand-on workshop to see, first hand, the benchtop NMR spectrometer developed during the project.