Nanion Technologies
| Nanion Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Type | Private company (GmbH) |
| Industry | Scientific instruments, electrophysiology |
| Founded | 2002, Munich, Germany |
| Headquarters | Munich, Germany |
| Products | Port-a-Patch, Patchliner, SyncroPatch, Orbit mini, Orbit 16 TC, CardioExcyte, SURFE²R |
| Website | nanion.com |
Nanion Technologies is a German company in Munich that makes instruments for recording the electric currents of ion channels. It sells automated planar patch clamp systems, which record from cells through a hole in a chip, and the Orbit line, which records from artificial lipid bilayers, the membranes that hold protein pores in many nanopore experiments.[1] It was founded in 2002 and is privately owned.[1]
Origins
File:Planar patch clamp chip.svg The company grew out of work at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. In 2002 a group there reported whole-cell recording from cells on a planar chip, with no pipette and no micromanipulator: a quartz substrate 200 µm thick was etched through to make apertures about 1 µm across, and cells were drawn onto them by suction.[2] A hole in quartz took the place of the glass pipette tip, and the paper recorded potassium and calcium channels from two kinds of cell line.[a] Ten years later the company said it had started in a small loft at the university's Institute of Physiology, with two employees, and had grown to 40.[4]
Instruments
Nanion's own timeline dates its first instrument, the Port-a-Patch, to 2003 and calls it "the world's smallest patch clamp rig".[1] Next came the Patchliner of 2006, the "first fully automated patch clamp device from Nanion recording from multiple cells in parallel", and the SyncroPatch 384PE, a high-throughput system, which began shipping in 2013.[1] In 2012 the company acquired the SURFE²R technology, which measures the currents of membrane transporters with a solid supported membrane, and it launched the SURFE²R 96SE in 2017.[1]
Bilayers came later: the Orbit 16, which records 16 in parallel, in 2012; the Orbit mini, which records four, in 2014; and the Orbit 16 TC in 2021.[1] The 16 TC forms its bilayers at the push of a button on a disposable chip of microelectrode cavities made by Ionera. Each cavity has its own silver/silver chloride electrode to minimize stray capacitance, and the 16 bilayers are recorded at bandwidths up to 100 kHz at temperatures between 5 and 50 °C.[5][6] Inside is the e16n amplifier of Elements srl. The product page lists "nanopores and pore-forming proteins" under applications.[5]
Software
The Orbit 16 TC is run by EDR4, the recording software developed by Elements, with the Elements Data Reader for analysis; the product page credits "our partner Elements S.R.L. (Italy)".[7] Molecular Reality Corporation calls its own Elements amplifier the EDR4, after the same software.[8]
At Molecular Reality
Nanion and Molecular Reality buy from the same Italian supplier. The company's live stream comes from an Elements e4 amplifier, which the company's field guide names for the Elements recording software, the program that Nanion ships with its bilayer workstation.[8][7] In the company's atlas of the field, The Hole World, Nanion is listed as an instrument maker in Munich and drawn with a pore labelled "Planar patch clamp".[9]
See also
Notes
- ^ The aperture is about 700 times wider than the 1.4 nm constriction of the alpha-hemolysin pore.[3]
References
- ^ a b c d e f "About us". Nanion Technologies. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ Fertig, N.; Blick, R. H.; Behrends, J. C. (2002). "Whole cell patch clamp recording performed on a planar glass chip". Biophysical Journal 82 (6): 3056-3062. doi:10.1016/S0006-3495(02)75646-4. PMID 12023228.
- ^ Song, Langzhou et al. (1996). "Structure of staphylococcal α-hemolysin, a heptameric transmembrane pore". Science 274 (5294): 1859-1865. doi:10.1126/science.274.5294.1859.
- ^ "Nanion celebrates its 10th anniversary". Analytica-World. January 17, 2012.
- ^ a b "Orbit 16 TC". Nanion Technologies. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ "How it works". Orbit 16 TC. Nanion Technologies. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ a b "Software". Orbit 16 TC. Nanion Technologies. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ a b "Keltar's Field Guide to Molecular Reality". Molecular Reality Corporation. August 2026.
- ^ "The Hole World". Molecular Reality Corporation. September 26, 2026.