Other

Abbott Laboratories Corporation

David G McKenna

Clark A Briggs

Murali Gopalakrishnan

Eugene Stanley Maslana

James P Sullivan

Jeffrey Y Pan

Peter M Bojan

Jean-Marc Roch

Edward B Touma

Daniel C Bertrand

Lisa M Monteggia

Jonathan D Trumbull

David P Blanchard

Thomas A Nemcek

A method and apparatus for running a plurality of tests concurrently to obtain data relating to the electrophysiological properties of receptors and channels in biological membranes of test subjects, such as, for example,oocytes. The invention further provides software for controlling, acquiring, and recording data relating to electrophysiological properties of receptors and channels in biological membranes of test subjects, such as, for example, oocytes. This invention increases the throughput rate for experiments and assays employing receptors and ion channels expressed in biological membranes of test subjects, such as, for example, oocytes. In the case of an oocyte, these receptors and channels may be natively expressed (endogenous), may be placed into the oocyte (exogenous), or may be expressed from other RNA or DNA previously placed into the oocyte (exogenous). The invention provides a means for a sole researcher to operate a plurality of electrophysiological test stations in the time and space conventionally required by a single electrophysiological test station. The invention automates these stations and provides a means for a sole individual to perform large sets of experiments that would be physically and mentally exhausting in the absence of this invention. In addition, this invention provides efficient database and data analysis software integrated with the data acquisition software, thereby increasing the user's data-handling productivity to keep pace with the augmented data generation capacity.

Apparatus and method for electrophysiological testing

A variant human &agr;7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) polypeptide is provided wherein the variant contains an amino acid substitution at the valine-274 position of the wild-type human &agr;7 nAChR. Nucleic acid molecules encoding the variant human &agr;7 nAChR, receptors and host cells containing such nucleic acid molecules are also provided. In addition, methods are provided for producing the variant as are methods of using such variants for screening compounds for activity at the nAChR.

Variant human &agr;7 acetylcholine receptor subunit, and methods of production and uses thereof

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McHenry, IL, United States of America

David G McKenna