Microlitre Flow Calorimeter

Enhance enzyme discovery and optimisation with the new chipCAL, a low cost, low volume flow calorimeter from TTP Labtech. Its fast throughput enables characterisation of enzyme activity to be achieved within 2-10 minutes per sample, thus opening the door to high-throughput enzyme screening, said the company. In addition, chipCAL is suitable for monitoring a range of processes in the  biopharma, food and fermentation industries. ChipCAL’s technology employs a flow principle, thereby enzyme and substrate are passed through a thermodynamic cell simultaneously. This allows chipCAL  to detect thermodynamic changes using volumes as low as 15μL, minimising the amount of valuable  sample used per analysis. chipCAL’s microliter flow calorimetry also provides the additional benefit of non-contact, label-free sample monitoring. Dr Marcel van Tilborg, Corporate Scientist, DSM Biotechnology Centre, who has been closely involved in pilot studies using chipCAL said “finally it is possible to achieve fast, labelfree and absolute activity measurements - a breakthrough for everyone using enzymes who need speed, accuracy and low cost in biological assays."

Easy to use chipCAL has a wide working temperature range of between 15°C-60°C, allowing a broad variety of biological activities to be analysed. Following analysis, samples are simply passed through to a waste unit and a new sample can be loaded, without the need for a laborious wash stage. This technology has the potential to significantly enhance high-throughput enzyme screening, being capable of analysing up to 60 samples in an 8 hour working day.