InteliSpark client ACIS, LLC has won a $670,777 contract with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for the Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project, "Novel Single Cell Assay for Quantitative Analysis of Cell Heterogeneity by Noninvasive Probing of Molecular Composition of Specific Organelles in Individual Cells”.
ACIS, LLC proposes a conceptually novel cellular heterogeneity assay, based on confocal Raman spectrometry and Biomolecular Component Analysis (BCA). The goal of Phase II is to implement a BCA toolbox in a commercial confocal micro- Raman instrument for quantitative assessment of cellular heterogeneity and potential quantitative classification of cellular states based on macromolecular compositions in specific organelles, a single cell assay developed during the Phase I, Phase II focuses on bringing this new device to the market.
This project is motivated by the fact, that there is no currently any commercial tool, which provides direct probing of local biomolecular concentration in live cells. At the same time, this tool is extremely valuable for solving a number of problems, which require determination of quantitative markers for different cellular states (i) in diseased cell population (cancer-non-cancer, different cancer stages etc), (ii) during cell-drug interaction, and (iii) in the intracellular processes (apoptosis, proliferation, differentiation, etc).
The outcome of this project will be a commercial confocal micro-Raman system with an implemented BCA toolbox, along with customized software for quantitative assessment of cellular heterogeneity, which can be used for a broad range of biomedical applications in many sectors such as clinical labs, Biomedical cellular Research labs, Pharmaceutical industries, National Cancer Institutes, etc.