BIOSOFT : Instruments and processes for stamping biomolecules in the biomedical flield – BIOSOFT

Biosoft is a joint research lab from Occitanie region associating an academic research team of LAAS-CNRS institution (Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems of French National Research Center) and SME Innopsys. It is an original Public/Private partnership, where we develop new methods of soft lithography (mainly Micro-Contact Printing) for the biomedical field. Micro-Contact Printing allows to deposit biomolecules of interest along micrometric patterns on any analytical supporting substrate. For the research team of LAAS, this labcom aimed at transferring some research processes and to deploy them for specific applications in biology and medical diagnostic. For Innopsys company, this joint lab targeted a diversification of its commercial products and a new strategic orientation towards instruments dedicated to the fabrication of micro-patterned analytical substrates with highly relevant biological content. The joint program focused around the Innostamp instrument, a semi-automatic system of Micro-Contact Printing, allowing the printing of biomolecular features on analytical slides with a sub-micrometric accuracy. We have explored, with an industrial vision, all the benefits offered by this technology and this instrument in the biomedical field. We have developed a competitive technology for the biofunctionalization of biochips and biosensors from the micrometric to the nanometric scale. After the first period of activity of this joint lab (2014-2016) we have strategically oriented our innovation towards the fabrication of Cell Micro-Arrays (CMAs), for which a growing market exist centered on academics and industrial end-users of the pharmaceutical field. The instrument at the core of our joint lab indeed enables the fabrication of very competitive CMAs (Solid supports on which living cells can be deterministically immobilized in a precise, reproducible and controlled manner). For this purpose, a dedicated automated Micro-Contact Printing process has been developed in order to print patterns of proteins of the Extra Cellular matrix of cells. In this consolidation phase of our joint lab our objective will be to qualify the instruments in term of quality and reproducibility, to adapt the process to different supports used nowadays in cellular biologie (titration plates, glass slides, hydrogels thin layers) and to apply this process in collaboration with prestigious biological teams to original problematics of current cell biology. At the end of this consolidation phase, we hope to demonstrate :
- The advantages of our fabrication system with respect to concurrent solutions
- The versatility of our process with respect to some specific issues interesting our "end-users" guests
- The acceptation of our technology by some research teams acting as key opinion leaders in the field
- the complementary of the instruments commercialized by Innopsys along the whole value chain (Innostamp for the production of the CMAs and Innoscan for their characterization at high throughput.