Western Multi-blotting Device - Improve the Productivity of Protein Transfer

Abstract

Dr. Stanley Chien from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Dr. Hiroki Yokota from Department of Biomedical Engineering jointly formed an interdisciplinary research team for the development of new devices to improve the productivity in Biology lab experiments. Western blotting is a common procedure in many biomedical laboratories. The team has developed a novel Western blotting device that can significantly reduce the time and cost for protein transfer experiments. Specifically, it enables the transferring of proteins of various sizes simultaneously to five blotting membranes from a single gel. The other advantage of the device is the resulting membranes are not affected by the variations among gels. A US patent is pending and a company has been formed to attract funding for the commercialization of the device. A spin-off company, YCBioelectric LLC., was created with the support of IURTC for commercialization of the Western Multi-blotting device. A $300,000 NIH STTR phase I grant has been received to further develop the devic