Research Partnership Aims to Prepare nanoPOTS Platform for Commercial Use

Researchers from around the world collaborate with scientists at The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a U.S. Department of Energy scientific user facility located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), to study everything from plant cells to entire ecosystems at the molecular level.

With enough sample, EMSL scientists can use mass spectrometry to identify individual molecules or proteins from a collection of tens of thousands. In 2018, EMSL and PNNL researchers brought that precise analysis to single cells.

They developed a platform for mass-spectrometry based analysis called Nanodroplet Processing in One Pot for Trace Samples, or nanoPOTS. NanoPOTS enhances the efficiency and recovery when processing tiny samples of protein-containing liquid, downscaling processing volumes to less than 200 nanoliters to limit surface losses during analysis.

Now a new partnership between EMSL and SCIENION, a biotechnology company based in Germany that specializes in precision liquid handling systems, will prepare nanoPOTS for commercial use. Through the research and development agreement, scientists will combine nanoPOTS with technology that isolates single cells and dispenses nanoliters of liquid, produced by a subsidiary of SCIENION. The result will be an effective system to prepare samples for single cell mass spectrometry-based proteomics analysis.

Ying Zhu, an analytical chemist at EMSL, co-developed nanoPOTS with Ryan Kelly, now at Brigham Young University.

Other PNNL researchers involved with the original development include Geremy Clair, Will Chrisler, Rui Zhao, Ron Moore, and Dick Smith.

To learn more about licensing nanoPOTS, visit the Available Technologies page.