DISEASE MODELING

Disease models enable understanding of how the disease develops and the discovery of potential treatment approaches.
Maestro MEA technology is helping advance the understanding of brain and cardiac diseases, from epilepsy and fragile X syndrome, to cardiac Long QT syndrome in an animal or an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) model.

LEAP : LOCAL EXTRACELLULAR ACTION POTENTIALS

Axion’s patent-pending Local Extracellular Action Potential (LEAP) assay signal allows quantification of action potential morphology and characterization of complex repolarization irregularities (e.g. early after depolarizations (EADs)). LEAP is label-free and doesn’t disrupt the underlying biology, meaning you can focus on the pharmacology and not on dye-drug or dye-biology interactions.

STEM CELL MODEL DEVELOPMENT

Developing advanced electrically active cell models is challenging. Are gene expression, FACS, or Western blots enough to capture the complexity of your stem-cell derived neurons and cardiomyocytes? The cells may have the proper characteristics, but how do they function in a network?
Maestro microelectrode array (MEA), the multiwell in vitro platform provides you with the cell activity information you’ve been missing. Now you can track the differentiation of electroactive cells (e.g. neurons, cardiomyocytes, and muscle cells) label-free in real-time with the Maestro multiwell activity map.

CiPA

The inability to predict a drug’s cardiovascular liability prior to clinical trials or launch has resulted in numerous costly late stage drug development failures and market withdrawals. The aim of the Comprehensive in vitro Proarrhythmia Assay (CiPA) initiative is to update the existing cardiac safety testing paradigm to better evaluate arrhythmia risk . One proposed test of the CiPA panel is a microelectrode array (MEA) assay that tracks drug-induced changes to beating heart cells in a dish.
The Maestro MEA system played a pivotal role in the CiPA Myocyte studies.

SAFETY & TOXICOLOGY

Coupled with high-throughput, functional platforms like the Maestro MEA system, new predictive in vitro models are being developed.
These new models hold the promise of altering the current safety paradigm, improving predictivity, lowering cost, animal usage, and creating safer new drugs.

DRUG DISCOVERY

With the Maestro, high-throughput electrophysiology assessment of a functioning cell network provides a innovative approach to drug discovery whch requires high-throughput and high volume for both experiments and data analysis. Maestro APEX, a benchtop workstation automates every facet of Maestro experiments from cell culture through dosing, allowing you to screen more plates and more compounds faster than ever.

OPTOGENETICS

Recreating physiologically relevant cell activity in your assay increases the power of your research. Now you can control cell excitability with light. Optogenetics techniques use genetic targeting to express light-sensitive ion channels (e.g. channelrhodopsin-2, ChR2) in targeted cell populations. When optically stimulated with the opsin-specific activation wavelength, those ion channels are activated, causing depolarization or hyperpolarization of the cell membrane.
Stimulating cell cultures with specific wavelengths of light allows you to activate or silence cell activity in targeted cell populations.

ZEBRAFISH

Zebrafish have emerged as a valuable animal model for studying developmental and drug effects. Zebrafish are advantageous because they can be easily genetically altered and bath applied compounds can readily penetrate the fish.
With Maestro MEA you can non-invasively study neural activity in both zebrafish head and spine. The high-density grid of recording electrodes in each well of a Maestro MEA plate provides neural data with high spatial and temporal resolution. The non-invasive nature of MEA also has the advantage of fish survival for future experiments.