FGen

FGen is a new start-up created in 2011 and located in Basel, it is a spin-off from the ETH, specifically the D-BSSE department which is in Basel (instead of Zurich with the rest of ETH). FGen is focused on the development of high throughput screens based on the work of (and founded by) Prof. Sven Panke.

The technology of FGen, based on nanoliter reactors, is used for screening assays that FGen develops with collaborators. Based on what I've read in the publications, to make the nanoliter reactors, cells are resuspended in an alginate gel which is separated into beads using a laminar jet break-up encapsulator. Once the cells are isolated into the beads, they can be treated together but held separately (i.e. do PCR by soaking all the beads in the reagents and put them all together in a thermocycler). This is significantly better than other methods where cells are cultured individually in wells (which takes a lot of 96-well plates!). With the beads, there are many different ways to screen described on the FGen webpage and of these I think the buoyancy-difference screen is really cool! Details of the system and screens, including the buoyancy-difference screen are detailed in this ETH dissertation - pdf.

While the company appears to be small and in the 'developing the technology' stage, the associated lab at D-BSSE has a CTI associated success story partnered with DSM Nutritional Products. Together they developed a screen for production of vitamin B2 (read the success story - pdf).