The onset of a revolution in drug discovery

Cell electrophysiology is extremely important to cell biology, medicine and drug development, and micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS)-based systems hold great promise to alleviate several problems associated with the current methods used by the pharmaceutical industry to probe drug development. Porterfield et al. at Purdue University have developed an integrated MEMS-based system, which offers considerable advantages compared with current electrophysiological systems and might have greater implications as an advanced method for drug development.