'Increased freedom to operate for everyone in automated patch clamping'
Munich, Germany, April 15th, 2010; Nanion Technologies GmbH (Nanion), a supplier of automated, parallel patch-clamp systems based in Munich, Germany, today announced that a Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) has overturned an earlier decision of the Opposition Division to uphold patent EP 1,040,349 owned by Molecular Devices, Inc. (MDC).

Download the complete press release here in English  (105kb)

• SyncroPatch 96 - Giga-seal recordings from 96 cells in parallel
• Suction Control Pro - Pressure clamp extension for Nanion’s second generation Suction Control for the Port-a-Patch
• Ultrafast Perfusion System - Nanion’s new add-on for the Port-a-Patch

Download our new Product Catalogue here   (13.789kb)

Munich, Germany, Nov. 26th, 2009. Nanion Technologies GmbH was announced the overall winner of the STEP Award 2009, a business award for innovative and fast-growing companies. More than 120 companies competed in this year’s STEP Award and Nanion as the grand prize-winner receives a cash prize of € 50,000 and a comprehensive service package worth the same amount.

For more information about the award (in German):
http://www.step-award.de

Download the complete press release in English  (40kb)

For further information about the Vesicle Prep Pro and low noise bilayer recordings

For further information about the Patchliner

During the award ceremony in Berlin, Nanion was announced winner of the Deutscher Gründerpreis 2009. The Deutscher Gründerpreis is the most important award for outstanding entrepreneurs in Germany. The prize includes a coaching by Porsche Consulting and a mentorship for Nanion. The mentor for Nanion is Dr. Jürgen Heraeus, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Heraeus Holding.

Download the complete press release here in English  (127kb), in German (125kb)

Stem cell derived cardiomyocytes were analyzed using Nanion’s Patchliner and Port-a-patch to validate the ion channel composition, the presence of action potentials and the effects of compounds on cardiac channels.

Download the complete press release here in English  (49kb), in German  (55kb)

Download the Patchliner application note here   (624kb)

Download the Port-a-Patch application note here   (557kb)

Axiogenesis website: www.axiogenesis.com

Nanion is again nominated for a prestigious award, this time it is the German Founder Award (Deutscher Gründerpreis).

For more information about the award (in German):
http://www.deutscher-gruenderpreis.de/owx_medien/media17/1736.pdf

For more information about Nanion’s nomination (in German):
http://www.deutscher-gruenderpreis.de/owx_medien/media17/1734.pdf

     

Nanion today announces the opening of Nanion Technologies Inc. with headquarters in North Brunswick, NJ, USA. To support the increasing demand of Nanion’s products, and to continue giving premium customer service, Nanion now expands its presence in the American market.

Download the complete press release here   (46kb)

Press release in German (48kb)

Nanion is again nominated for a prestigious innovation award, due its impressive product portfolio of automated patch clamp systems. More than 350 companies competed in this year’s Innovation Award and Nanion is finalist in the category 'Start-Up Companies'.

Download the complete press release here   (44kb)

Nanion’s Port-a-Patch is used for bilayer research and education at the Technical University of Munich.

Starting in 2008, Nanion’s Port-a-Patch is being used in education and research at the Institute for Biomolecular Systems and Bioelectronics, Department of Physics at the Technical University of Munich. Because of its ease of use and the high quality data generated, the Port-a-Patch is of great value in basic biophysical research and hands-on education of students.

"The Port-a-Patch allows students and researchers with no prior experience in electrophysiology to rapidly generate research grade data. Within the courses given at the Institute for Biomolecular Systems and Bioelectronics, the students gain hands-on experience in basic membrane biophysics and electrophysiology which is of great value for their education." says Professor Simmel, who holds the Chair of Bioelectronics at the TU Munich Physics Department. His group is devoted to research in bionanotechnology, systems biophysics, and bioelectronics.

Nanion’s automated patch clamp system, the Port-a-Patch, is recognized as the world’s smallest patch clamp device, allowing for ultralow noise recording of single ion channel events in artificial as well as cellular bilayers, in addition to whole-cell recordings. Using Nanion’s Vesicle Prep Pro, giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are produced, into which the ion channels of interest are reconstituted. The GUVs, containing ion channels, are used to form high-resistance, solvent-free bilayers, using the Port-a-Patch. The procedures of bilayer formation and protein introduction are greatly simplified, increasing the efficiency of the research, as well as drastically increasing data quality compared to other recording techniques, such as the use of black lipid membranes.

Download the complete press release here   (44kb)

Nanion increases throughput and cuts costs with a new patch clamp screening robot

Today, Nanion announces the late-stage development of a new automated patch clamp platform: the SyncroPatch 96. Developed to meet the throughput demands of industrial ion channel drug screening and safety profiling, and with a price-per-data-point compatible with screening standards, the SyncroPatch 96 will offer the highest throughput in the market for high quality HTS-oriented ion channel screening.

Following the successful market introduction of two automated patch clamp devices, the Port-a-Patch (2004) and the Patchliner (2006), Nanion now introduces the SyncroPatch 96. The SyncroPatch 96 acquires simultaneous recordings from 96 individual cells in a well-plate format and allows for screening of both ligand- and voltage-gated ion channels. The platform supports giga-seal recordings, continuous recording during compound application and addition of multiple compounds to each of the 96 cells. Building on a proven successful technology, the new SyncroPatch 96 vastly increases throughput while reducing the cost per data point.

Download the complete press release here   (42kb)

New application on the Port-a-Patch: Automated planar lipid bilayer formation from giant unilammellar vesicles (GUVs) containing ion channel protein for patch clamp analysis.
Published in Lab-on-a-Chip 2008, DOI: 10.1039/b713982a:  'Rapid screening of membrane protein activity: electrophysiological analysis of OmpF reconstituted in proteoliposomes'.

     (306kb)    (http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/LC/article.asp?doi=b713982a)

Solvent-free planar lipid bilayers were formed in an automatic manner by bursting of giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) after gentle suction application through micron-sized apertures in a borosilicate glass substrate. Incubation of GUVs with the purified ion channel protein of interest yielded proteoliposomes. These proteoliposomes allow for immediate recording of channel activity after GUV sealing. This approach reduces the time-consuming, laborious and sometimes difficult protein reconstitution processes normally performed after bilayer formation. Bilayer recordings are attractive for investigations of membrane proteins not accessible to patch clamp analysis, like e.g. proteins from organelles.

Press-Release (75kb)

PatchControl 4.0 features:
More Automation: Powerful macros increase the level of automation, ease-of-use and efficiency for obtaining high quality patch clamp data.
More Users: Multi-user functions increase the data safety, so that every user has a personalized log file, macros and protocols.
More Compatibility: Pachcontrol 4.0 is compatible with most operating systems and e-phys acquisition software such as pClamp9, pClamp10, Pulse, Patchmaster etc.

For more details, please have a look at NanionNotes8. (361kb)

The planar patch clamp technology used in a family of automated electrophysiology products developed and marketed by Nanion Technologies GmbH in Munich, Germany, is among four technological and scientific innovations that have been nominated for this year's Deutscher Zukunftspreis (German Future Prize, Federal President's Award for Technology and Innovation). (14kb)

"Neuromethods - Patch-Clamp Analysis", edited by W. Walz, Humana Press,
Chapter 14 by Jan C. Behrends and Niels Fertig (Co-Founders of Nanion Technologies) (4.949kb)

Product Catalogue (4.920kb)

If you would like to receive a hard copy, please request here!

The Port-a-Patch offers the possibility to perfuse the extracellular as well as the intracellular side of the cell membrane.

NanionNotes7 (1.290kb)

Nanion Technologies GmbH, a supplier of automated, parallel patch-clamp systems based in Munich, Germany, today announced that they would appeal the decision of the European Patent Office (EPO) to uphold the disputed Molecular Devices patent EP 1,040,349. The appeal is merely a precaution against problems with future developments in the field and it should be realized that the disputed patent has no relevance for Nanion's currently marketed products such as the Port-a-Patch or the Patchliner. Rather, the disputed patent seeks protection for a well-known physical effect that theoretically can be used to exert electrical force on cells or vesicles.
"All currently marketed planar patch-clamp devices use suction to move cells, not electrical force, which so far has proved unreliable. However, all of them, and many other devices published long before MDC's patent can produce such electrical forces if enough voltage is applied." explains Nanion's CEO Niels Fertig. Jan Behrends, cofounder and chairman of the board concurs: "In its provisional opinion, the Opposition Division at EPO in Munich, seemed to have understood this point very clearly. We were very surprised that during oral proceedings they moved away from their original opinion, but we're confident that the Board of Appeal, who will really make the final judgement,  will reverse that decision."
The disputed patent was originally filed by the Ecole Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne, Switzerland and then taken over by Cytion SA, a start-up company acquired by Molecular Devices in 2001 and shut down shortly after.
Andrea Brüggemann, CSO at Nanion, comments: "Our customers should know that this patent dispute in no way concerns our present planar patch technology, nor indeed those marketed by Molecular Devices. The recent decision, which is open to appeal, is, therefore, not a concern for our core business."
In both academic and industrial settings, Nanion's Port-a-Patch enjoys great popularity as the world's smallest patch clamp device. Furthermore, the Patchliner, Nanion's higher throughput patch-clamp robot, has seen a very successful market entry in 2006. Both in 2005 and 2006 Nanion's products received top ratings in customer surveys run by HTStec.

Press Release 19.01.2007 (26kb)

Ligand-gated ion channels with the Patchliner (1.065kb)

Automated formation of planar lipid bilayers (465kb)

After a successful introduction of Nanion’s first generation of automated patch clamp devices, the company seeks to expand its team and is very glad to hire Cecilia Farre, Ph.D., for research, product development as well as marketing and sales activities.

Dr. Cecilia Farre graduated in analytical chemistry and electrophysiology from Göteborg University, Sweden, where she also held a postdoctoral position in electrophysiology. Dr. Farre was employed as project manager and later on Vice President of Key Projects at Cellectricon AB, Göteborg, Sweden, where she played a key role in the development and commercialization of the company’s microfluidics platform.

Dr. Farre will work at Nanion within the EU-Project 019335 'Translocation'.

(16kb)

At the upcoming Annual Meeting of the German Physiological Society in Munich (26.- 29.03.2006), Nanion will organize a satellite symposium on 'New and Emerging Techniques in Electrophysiology'. It is our pleasure, that Prof. Fred Sigworth will give the plenary lecture for the symposium.
The announcement with tentative list of speakers is available as PDF. (14kb)

If you plan to attend, please briefly send an email with subject 'symposium' to info@nanion.de

Munich, Germany – Octobre 2005 – The German nanobiotech company Nanion Technologies GmbH was recently awarded the Bavarian Innovation Award 2005 and is Bavarias company of the year (small/medium enterprise (SME)).

Nanion received the award for its chip-based patch clamp technique, which allows to perform sophisticated electrophysiological measurements from cells in an automated and parallel manner. Nanions entry level device, the Port-a-Patch, supersedes the common pipette based patch clamp technique in ease of use and throughput and doesn’t require a microscope, vibration isolation or a micromanipulator. The Port-a-Patch uses an all electrical read-out for automatically positioning and electrically contacting cells on the chip. With the Port-a-Patch, Nanion offers the world’s smallest patch-clamp workstation. This innovative drug discovery technology makes patch clamp available also to non-electrophysiologists.

This innovation and its successful market introduction has been award the prestigious prize, which clearly is an important step and great commendation for Nanion. (21kb)

In September 2005, HTStec has published a new ion channel survey focused on user experience of automated patch clamping. The objective of this global benchmarking study is to comprehensively document current practices and technology preferences, progress in implementing high throughput electrophysiology (automated patch clamping) and future trends in ion channel screening.
One of the key outcomes of this survey, is the overwhelming success of Nanions Port-a-Patch: More than 80% of the Port-a-Patch users are very happy with overall instrument performance! This is by far the best rank compared to other instrument providers. The statistics are shown in the table below. The complete results of the survey called "HTStec Ion Channel Trends 2005" can be obtained via www.htstec.com.

HTStec report (171kb)

The Port-a-Patch enables intra- and extracellular perfusion on the same cell. This permits investigation of ligand dependent ion channels or signalling pathways. Intracellular perfusion also enables perforated patches in a straight forward manner. (484kb)

(93kb)

http://www.wallstreetreporter.com/profiles/NanionGmbH.html

http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/5/23/18/1

The Port-a-Patch can be optional used under continuous flow. For this purpose Nanion has designed a fast Perfusion System with an integrated manifold. (565kb)

The Nanion Notes will provide information on Nanion’s planar patch clamp technology, presenting applications, data and recent product developments. (323kb)

Nanion Technologies has successfully participated in the BioChance Plus competition of the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Nanion initiated a joined research project as the leading partner and today the acceptance of funding for the whole research consortium of € 2 million has been announced.
Nanion receives the grant for their automated ion channel analysis platform. In this project, Nanion will strengthen and further develop its planar patch technology for automated electrophysiology. Nanion will closely collaborate with the project partners Evotec OAI AG and conoGenetix biosciences GmbH, which are users of Nanions technology platform from the biotech industry. This grant will accelerate Nanions development of higher throughput instrumentation and it not only supports the work financially, but also approves the development carried out so far at Nanion Technologies.

The popular Port-a-Patch electrophysiology setup is now compatible with all amplifiers and corresponding software packages. Existing equipment like e.g. an Axopatch 200B amplifier can be used to work with the Port-a-Patch.
Also, the software package of choice can be used. So people trained on Axon software can keep using it, without the need to switch the software.
Using existing equipment saves your research money!
For details on compatibilities please see PDF-File. (19kb)

Nanion now offers an automated perfusion system based on a gravity fed laminar flow chamber. Nanions perfusion system provides a fast and continuous perfusion. A solution exchange is achieved within less than 200 ms. The waste solution is automatically removed by the built-in pump system. It allows accurate application of up to eight different compounds and solutions via the patch clamp software. PatchMaster by HEKA can be used to control the perfusion system without an additional interface. A large variety of input signals can be used for steering, e.g. analog voltage input, TTL or serial communication.