The HT electroporation system is currently being evaluated by the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland before the official launch planned for the middle of next year.

According to Dr Gerardo Turcatti, director of the Biomolecular Screening Facility at the EPFL, the system is already delivering impressive results.

"We are impressed by the unprecedented high throughput delivery of genetic materials the Cellaxess-HT system offers," said Dr Turcatti.

"We believe that Cellaxess-HT has the potential to greatly advance our efforts in our RNAi research programs."

The Cellaxess-HT system is based on the popular Cellaxess systems that were designed to be easily operable and transfect cell cultures directly without the need for transferring them to new vessels.

The system uses a proprietary electroporation technique to create temporary holes in cell membranes using short electric pulses. The resulting holes allow siRNA (small interfering RNA), peptides and other genetic material to be delivered to the cells.

According to Dr Mattias Karlsson, CEO at Cellectricon, the system allows many cell lines to be transfected that cannot be transfected using traditional electroporation or liposomal methods.

"Standard electroporation can be quite limited in terms of success rates and cell viability after transfection, but if you look at the more high-tech methods they are very successful. Our method enables most cell lines to be transfected very efficiently," said Dr Karlsson.

The search for new high quality targets means that many pharma companies are looking to conduct genome wide transfection studies on relevant cell lines that express specific diseases.

"The industry keeps telling us that there are no suitable technologies to transfect biologically relevant cell types for RNAi screening - they don't have a delivery method that allows them to work with the cell types that they want to work with so they can find high quality targets," said Dr Karlsson.

"This HT electroporation system really enables the industry to start working with new cell lines, opening up completely new opportunities for the pharma industry."

According to the company the system can directly transfect cells in 384 well plate cultures with a throughput of up to 50,000 wells a day. This is approximately 50 times the throughput of the current industry leading technology supplied by Amaxa.

Because the cells are transfected in the wells they are cultured in they are exposed to less stress increasing the viability of the cells.

"The beauty of our technology is that we see significantly better viability than with other methods because the configuration of our technology doesn't stress the cells as much as other methods," said Dr Karlsson.