Cellular Estimation of Immunity – Cellestim

We propose a low-cost and low-technology approach to investigate individual cell responses. This new generation of biosensor (and biochip) is likely to pave the way toward biological data sets that have never been accessed so far. The strength and novelty of our approach is based on several key elements: the access to secretion at the individual cell level, and the ability to monitor these individual behaviors varying upon time, for few hours up to one day.
On the contrary to 'single cell' investigations which focus on the study of one unique cell, usually isolated from other cells, the approach we propose is based on 'individual cell' monitoring. This difference is fundamental as the individual cell approach allows the investigation of biological signals at the cellular level, collected from a cell, but freely interacting with other cells. The studies can thus be carried out in raw samples, with only gentle manipulation. In other words, the individual approach ensures the access to ex vivo biological information much closer to the 'living reality' than in vitro single cell analysis. A second significant advantage of our approach is the ability to access a statistically relevant number of individual responses. We are confident in the fact that these data should allow us to describe different secreting-ability profiles, depending on physiological states. This is partly motivated by preliminary results we obtained on cell responses in stimulated murine spleen cells.
The technological breakthrough we propose is also based on the unique possibility to follow individual cells responses upon time, for several hours, without any labeling step. This is a fundamental difference with the alternative approaches described so far, which are mainly based on detection, and not on long-term (on a cellular-life time scale) monitoring. Once again, as this approach has never been used to date, the extend of the biomedical impact remains difficult to gauge. This point shall be addressed when completing the project. and pave the way to further clinical studies.