At the Beacon Center for Single Cell Biology, researchers at Caltech can now utilize the advanced technology of optofluidic cell culture. The Bruker Cellular Analysis Beacon Optofluidics Platform utilizes LED light technology termed Opto Electro Positioning (OEP) to manipulate cells and other small objects in and out of thousands of small compartments (nanopens) inside of specially designed microfluidic chips (Opto Select chips).

Single-cell-based experimental methods have moved biological research forward by providing tremendous insights into the behavior of single cells and their genetic underpinnings. From these approaches, the field has revealed a great deal about the complexity of single cell profiles. However, many of these methods, including single-cell sequencing and microfluidic encapsulation, are limited in at least two key ways. First, they can struggle to assay an individual cell over time, often because cells are consumed by the assay or are not well maintained in culture between assays. Second, these methods are often limited in their ability to pair phenotype observations to genotype determination without averaging or sub-sampling (such as during FACS procedures).

What if one could make biochemical observations about an individual cell's function and behavior while capturing also its gene expression profile, and exactly pair these two types of observations to each other?

With the Beacon, we now can! Isolation of single cells in nanopens allows for them to be observed over time while still in culture, meaning that cells can be exported alive at the end of an assay. Furthermore, phenotype and genotype information can be associated together because individual cells can be addressed to specific nanopens, thus every cell manipulation (penning, culture, assays and export) can be accounted for via images and videos of OEP and assay results addressed by pen number.