Company Information

MicroVacuum Ltd. is a Hungarian high-tech company. MicroVacuum is a global supplier of label-free biosensor

Biosensor

A biosensor is an analytical device for the detection of an analyte that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector component.It consists of 3 parts:* the sensitive biological element A biosensor is an analytical device for the detection of an analyte that combines a biological...

 systems for the life-science

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 research market to provide rapid, real-time, label free detection and characterization of surface adsorption, binding of molecules.

MicroVacuum develops, manufactures and markets the OWLS label-free, real-time biosensor system based on the grating coupler waveguide technology. The OW optical sensors and OWLS analytical system allow the determination of the affinity and kinetics of a wide variety of molecular interactions in real time, without the need for a molecular tag or label.

Applications include protein quantification, classification of protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions, drug screening

Drug test

A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen – for example urine, hair, blood, sweat, or oral fluid / saliva – to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites...

, immunosensing and many more. MicroVacuum has customers all over the world including prominent universities in the United States

Universities in the United States

Higher education in the United States includes a variety of institutions of higher education. Strong research and funding have helped make United States colleges and universities among the world's most prestigious, making them particularly attractive to international students, professors and...

, Europe, Australia and Asia.

The main biosensing applications of the OWLS technology are as follows:

• Adsorption of proteins at surfaces
• Immunosensing
• Drug screening
• Ligand / receptor binding
• Kinetics of adhesion, growth and spreading of living cells
• Protein - lipid bilayer
  Lipid bilayer
  The lipid bilayer is a thin membrane made of two layers of lipid molecules. These membranes are flat sheets that form a continuous barrier around cells. The cell membrane of almost all living organisms and many viruses are made of a lipid bilayer, as are the membranes surrounding the cell nucleus...
  
   interactions
• Protein - DNA interactions
• Molecular self-assembly
  Self-assembly
  Self-assembly is a term used to describe processes in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction...
  
  & nanoscience
• Analysis of association and dissociation kinetics