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The device
A nanochannel, a membrane, and a lipid bilayer holding exactly one protein pore.
The device
Five parts, described in the patent
The claim is specific about the stack: a channel in a support material, electrodes on its wall, a nanomembrane with a pore, a lipid bilayer, and a protein nanopore. Each layer does one job.
The bilayer is the interesting part: the pore in the membrane is sized so that the lipid bilayer spanning it accommodates exactly one protein nanopore — no more.
Anatomy
What each layer is for
Support material
The body of the device, with a channel etched through it.
Nanochannel
A channel at the nanometre scale, running through the support material.
Sidewall electrodes
One or more electrodes formed on the channel wall, in direct contact with the membrane.
Nanomembrane and nanopore
A membrane inside the channel, encircling a pore, with a hydrophobic surface.
Lipid bilayer and protein pore
A lipid bilayer spanning the pore, with a single protein nanopore inserted into it.
In use
Separate, purify, sense
Separate
Molecules are driven along the nanochannel, where size and charge decide how they move.
Purify
The pore geometry concentrates what passes and holds back what should not.
Sense
The electrodes read the pore, and the protein pore gives the device its single-molecule resolution.
What this page is based on
A patent, not a brochure
The company published no website that the archive kept, and no product page, datasheet or press release survives. Everything above is read off the granted patent’s abstract and claims, and the schematic is our drawing of it rather than an image from the company.
Contact
Talk to the company
The company published one address and one telephone number. Both are reproduced, as they stood.