Project description
Psst...use this combination if you want to make it through clinical trials to market
Effective action of drugs at their targets and reliably correct diagnoses of diseases and conditions have one very important thing in common, the correct selection of and interaction with the biomarkers used for targeting the drug or 'tagging' the disease from the start. Most failures of drugs in the clinical stage are related to the initial failure to correctly identify these interactions. To address this time-consuming and costly problem, the German SME Surflay Nanotec has developed WhisperSense, the first commercial label-free bioanalysis platform exploiting individual microparticles as label-free biosensors. The tiny spherical microparticles can be functionalised to recognise specific biological entities. The highly sensitive and specific platform also supports high-throughput screening. EU funding of the WhisperSense project helped the team improve technical performance, evaluate feasibility and develop a credible business plan.
Objective
The latest industry research shows that about 90 percent of drugs that reach clinical stage fail due to incorrect selection methods. The same applies to diagnostic markers. A crucial failure source is the imperfect identification and characterisation of biological interaction analytics in the early stages of drug discovery and biomarker identification. Surflay's innovation addresses this challenge. The company developed the unique WhisperSense technology based on the physical effect of whispering gallery modes (WGM). WhisperSense makes a full kinetic analysis of biological interations possible, uniquely applying a spatial resolution of up to 6 µm in complex biological matrixes (e.g. cell culture suspensions), also in a multiplex format. Furthermore and uniquely, it is possible to perform measurements in a wide variety of reaction vessels. For the first time, WhisperSense will allow full kinetic analyses within cell cultures and organoids. All these advances eliminate certain time consuming sample preparation steps at the customer's site and enable monitoring of running processes in real-time, leading to a more precise drug and biomarker selection.
The development is protected by 3 patents and many years of expert knowledge in the production of the special spherical microparticles. Initially, Surflay will address the public sector with its WhisperSense technology, followed by the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industry.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteins
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiological behavioural sciencesethologybiological interactions
- engineering and technologyother engineering and technologiesmicrotechnologyorgan on a chip
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
12489 Berlin
Germany
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.