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Neuroservice wins FEDER/REACT EU grant to acquire HD MEAs
Neuroservice wins a 820,000€ grant from the Region “Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur” FEDER / REACT EU fund, allowing acquisition of HD-MEA systems.
Project co-financed by React EU – European Union stimulus plan in reaction to Covid-19 pandemic
Projet cofinancé par React EU – dispositif de relance de l’Union Européenne en réponse à la pandémie Covid-19
Neuroservice became in 15 years a world-renowned leader in pharmacological testing on brain and spinal cord slices. Neuroservice holds a unique mastery of the Multi Electrode Array (MEA) recording technique thanks to its MEA systems production line. Thanks to the FEDER investment program grant of 820,000€, Neuroservice will acquire new High Density MEA systems, thus renewing its whole fleet of MEA equipment while benefitting from a crucial technical competitive edge (resolution and sharpness) for recording signals from neurons and neuronal networks.
The operational regional program FEDER invests in growth and employment in the French region “Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur” and selected Neuroservice project “NEUROHDMEA” as an innovative research program that will contribute to accelerate CNS (Central Nervous System) drug discovery research.
About the HD-MEA technology
The recent development of High Density MEA systems is a true revolution in the signal acquisition field, as those new technologies embark C-MOS sensors showcasing a special resolution increased 100x compared to classic MEA systems (printed circuits). In addition to this upgraded resolution, HD-MEAs selected by Neuroservice allow the use of tri-dimensional electrodes enabling a better penetration of recorded tissue and a better signal/noise ratio.
Neuroservice already acquired in 2020 one HD-MEA system from 3Brain and started a thorough work of fine-tuning and optimization of the equipment by collaborating closely with the provider.
Following these research and development efforts, replacing the entire fleet of MEA systems by 8 HD-MEA systems will allow Neuroservice to reinforce its value proposition competitivity in terms of MEA electrophysiological tests for the pharmaceutical industry.
Data analyzed by Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Neuroservice already launched a key project aiming at developing AI algorithms which will allow the manual or semi-automatic analysis of terabytes of data generated by HD-MEAs.
As a backup to its internal resources, Neuroservice will be supported by IBM to reinforce its capacity to extract high value-added data and to understand how molecules can modulate neurons and neuronal network functions, thus strengthening its position as a world leader in functional neuropharmacology.
By 2023, Neuroservice MEA activity should be solely relying on HD-MEA technology. As such, Neuroservice will provide pharmaceutical and biotech companies with extremely accurate and added-value physiological and pharmacological data to understand and document better targets and mechanisms of action of candidate molecules.
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