IonOptix and Sarcometrics announce strategic partnership
IonOptix and Sarcometrics announce a new strategic partnership combining IonOptix’s industry leading research instruments with Sarcometrics’s expertise in experimental design and data acquisition, analysis, and result interpretation.
IonOptix systems have been the gold standard for high-speed, high-fidelity excitation-contraction coupling data for over 30 years. By focusing on the specific needs of the cardiovascular research community, IonOptix has developed a suite of tools designed to acquire and analyze intracellular calcium dynamics, myocyte shortening, force development, and cardiac work in isolated cardiomyocytes and thin myocardial slices. These measurements, however, require significant personnel expertise and resources to fully optimize.
Dr. Bradley Palmer founded Sarcometrics as a CRO to bridge that gap between resource availability and research requirements. Sarcometrics provides early-stage support for labs lacking the infrastructure to perform the measurements themselves, offering several services that examine ex vivo cardiovascular function. These include isometric force, sarcomere length, force-length work loops (akin to pressure-volume loops in whole heart), and intracellular calcium in cardiac slices, as well as myofilament force development and calcium sensitivity (tension-pCA relationship) and myosin crossbridge kinetics measurements in demembranated myocardium. The data gleaned from these measurements can be used to distinguish the effects of disease, sex, pharmacologic intervention, or gene therapy on cardiovascular function, important not only to understanding the molecular mechanisms underpinning cardiac physiology and pathophysiology but to toxicology and safety pharmacology as well.
IonOptix CEO Tom Udale appreciates and values the role of CROs in early pre-clinical investigations.
“IonOptix has long recognized the need for CRO services that leverage the unique abilities afforded by our systems to support labs that could not purchase one of our systems directly. We are extremely excited to have the opportunity to invest in Sarcometrics and bring these important assays to a wider audience. The combination of IonOptix systems and the Sarcometrics team’s decades of hands-on experience is a game changer. Scientists can now confidently assess the efficacy of their cardiac compounds or test for off-target issues using high-content mechanical datasets. Sarcometrics’s straightforward and simple process is a welcome alternative to the difficult process of developing this capability internally.”
Dr. Palmer has over 25 years experience designing and interpreting functional phenotyping measurements in cardiac muscle.
“Sarcometrics offers ex vivo assays to quantify cardiac functional phenotype due to pathophysiology and potential treatment regimens in terms of molecular mechanisms. With our specialized equipment, including instruments acquired from IonOptix, we can differentiate the effects on myofilament function from calcium handling. Our relationship with IonOptix is valuable as we continue to develop new techniques and instruments.”
In addition to founding Sarcometrics, Dr. Palmer’s role in the new venture will include experimental protocol design, communication with Sarcometrics personnel and clients, data acquisition and analysis including statistical analysis, and delivering final results to clients, using his access to and familiarity with IonOptix instruments to accelerate clients’ research goals. With full access to rat and mouse animal models as well as facilities including IonOptix Cardiac Slice and MultiCell instruments, Sarcometrics is currently accepting academic and commercial clients in the United States.
Sarcometrics – a new preclinical CRO focused on functional phenotyping of cardiomyocytes and tissue.