BioNanomatrix Receives $200,000 NCI Grant

Princeton University spinoff BioNanomatrix Inc. of Philadelphia today announced it has received a new $200,000 Small Technology Transfer Research (STTR) grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the US National Institutes of Health. BioNanomatrix said it will use the money to develop, with Princeton, integrated fluidics systems for its whole genome analytic platform that can separate out and sort whole chromosomes from a single cell or multiple cells, a process called "cell fractionation." The project will enable sorting of subcellular components by size, such as chromosomes prior to their isolation in nanofluidic channels, so that analyses can be performed in a real-time, benchtop format. A goal is to make whole genome studies less time consuming and costly, the company said.  "The core BioNanomatrix nanofluidics technology was originally developed at Princeton and we look forward to continuing to collaborate to further develop its utility for applications in both biomedical research and clinical medicine," said James Sturm, co-investigator of the project and William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, professor of electrical engineering and director of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM).