High-Speed Sorting Applications

Stem Cell Sorting
The use of high-throughput sorting is invaluable in stem cell research, as stem cells are exceedingly rare. Undifferentiated embryonic stem cells give rise to all the body's tissues. These cells may have the potential to be used for a vast array of lifesaving therapies. Stem cell research suggests that it may be possible to sort healthy stem cells from a donor for implanting in a patient with leukemia, for example, without the necessity of invasive and dangerous bone marrow transplants. Researchers also now suggest that it may be possible to isolate and grow stem cells into specific tissue or even organs for transplant.

Drug Discovery
The demand for new drugs at a reasonable cost is forcing the pharmaceutical companies to become more innovative, productive and efficient. The use of high-throughput screening offers much promise in accelerating the drug discovery research and testing process.

Previously, companies could screen 10,000 compounds per target per week in 10-20 simultaneous assays. The typical rate has risen to 10,000 compounds per day per target. With HTS technologies, screening capacity could increase to 100 million data points a year. A million compounds could be tested against a given target in a matter of weeks.

Sperm Sexing
Sex selection techniques require the separation of the sperm containing female producing X-chromosomes from sperm containing male producing Y-chromosomes. Separation is achieved by labeling the DNA in sperm cells with a non-toxic fluorescent dye. The more DNA the sperm cell contains, the more light it emits when a laser beam hits the cell. Therefore, sperm containing X-chromosomes will emit more light than those containing Y-chromosomes. High-throughput sorting can provide a viable quantity of sperm sufficient for low-dose artificial insemination of mammals, including horses, cattle, and pigs.

The advantages of sperm sexing in agriculture are easily recognizable. Selecting female cattle in the dairy industry and male cattle in the beef industry has obvious advantages. Similar advantages are available in the equine and swine industries. Currently, XY, Inc. is the only entity in the world that has a license to sort non-human sperm cells.

Sperm sexing may also prove useful in propagating endangered species by ensuring that an adequate number of females are born to continue the line.

The same technologies that have been applied in non-human sex selection have been applied to sex selection in humans. The safety and ethical questions involved in human sex selection suggest that its acceptance and widespread use will move at a slower pace than non-human sex selection through sperm sexing and artificial insemination.

Fetal Cell Separation
For years, medical science has possessed the capability of extracting fetal cells and testing them for various genetic and chromosomal abnormalities. This procedure is traditionally completed by performing an amniocentesis. New high-throughput sorting technologies suggest that the separation of exceedingly rare fetal cells found in the maternal blood supply may be possible, which would obviate the invasiveness of amniocentesis for the analysis of fetal cells.