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The Leonard Wolfson Biomarkers Laboratory has access to a variety of high quality equipment to develop fluid biomarker studies.
Traditional methods for measuring analytes in biofluids use immunological methods and the following platforms all work on this principal.
Please contact Dr Amanda Heslegrave (Team Leader) for more information or queries on any of the below.
Simoa HD-1 analyser
This is another platform that uses magnetic bead based technology, but at an ultrasensitive level, up to 1000x more sensitive than traditional ELISA techniques. The sensitivity is enabled by using a disc array containing femtolitre size wells so only one bead can occupy each well and be imaged giving a digital read out at low concnetrations. Quanterix the company that manufactures this platform offer a number of ready made kits including Tau and abeta, but there is also the opportunity to make your own ‘homebrew’ kits.
Mesoscale Discovery Sector Imager 6000
This platform enables us to perform sensitive ELISA assays using both ready made kits and kits we have assembled ourselves using uncoated plates. The readout is facilitated by electrodes in the bottom of the plate that are excited when antibody is bound enabling a signal to be produced and read. This is a very easy to use system and there are a number of well validated kits that we use often i.e. abeta triplex, APP alpha and beta. Ability to multiplex is there. For further info visit the Mesoscale website.
Magpix
This platform uses magnetic bead technology with CCD imaging. Visit the Millipore website for a full list of antibody coated beads. They can put together panels for you.
Martha Foiani in our lab is the Magpix user expert.
Biological Mass Spectrometry Centre at the UCL Institute of Child Health
-in collaboration with Dr Kevin Mills and Dr Wendy Heywood
It is not always possible to measure an analyte with an antibody so we need to use other methods. One such method is mass spectrometry, specifically Selected Reaction Monitoring (SRM) which enables us to accurately measure the amount of a protein or peptide in a sample using our knowledge of peptides formed when proteins are digested and of those peptide ion masses in the mass spectrometer. If you are interested in this technique, please look at their website to get an idea of what information they need from you or contact Amanda for informal advice.