Microanalytical technologies to monitor cellular signaling

The past few decades have been notable for enormous progress in our understanding of signal transduction mechanisms and their roles in disease states. The value of modulating intracellular signaling pathways has become clear with demonstrations of the clinical efficacy of specific inhibitors of kinases, a class of enzymes whose members mediate much of the signal transduction in eukaryotic cells. Coupled with these advances is the need to develop new methods to measure signaling in single cells from patients, new screening strategies for pharmaceutical agents targeting disordered signaling pathways, and new tools for patient diagnostics and prognostics. The lab is currently developing single-cell, microanalytical assays for enzymes with crucial roles in cellular signaling. These assays can be performed in a capillary format or on a microfluidic device fabricated from poly(dimethylsiloxane). Recent results on assay development in these devices will be presented.