Bill Staffopoulos, MAIA SCIENTIFIC

How did MAIA SCIENTIFIC came into being?

MAIA SCIENTIFIC, a Harvard Bioscience company, was founded in January 2002 as the European branch of Union Biometrica. Four scientists, who previously held key positions in technology development for high throughput, high content and model organism screening at Johnson & Johnson PRD, Beerse, Belgium in-licensed key technology from J&J and developed novel instrumentation for HTS and/or high information content screening. In addition, MAIA SCIENTIFIC provides services for compound and genetic screening & toxicology assay development with cells, tissues, tissue sections and small animal model organisms. MAIA SCIENTIFIC also builds partnerships to integrate biological imaging, preclinical and clinical R&D into customer-oriented platform technology.

Can you tell me a little bit about the technology?

Our flagship product, the MIAS-2 reader, is a new generation of HTS/HIS (High Information Screening) microscopy readers with an unequaled blend of sensitivity, flexibility and speed. They are designed to cover the throughput and flexibility needs at multiple phases across the R&D value chain. In drug discovery R&D, applications include target identification, target validation, assay development, high throughput screening, hit-to-lead, deep pharmacology and ADMET.

MIAS-2 readers offer an advanced level of motorization of the light paths and full integration with eaZYX software. They feature a total of up to 13 different microscopy modes: five brightfield microscopy modes and four or eight fluorescent channels covering blue to deep red reading. The MIAS-2 reader with four fluorescent modes has been optimized for sensitivity, the MIAS-2 reader with eight fluorescent modes for flexibility (across the visible spectrum). The brightfield and fluorescent modes of MIAS-2 readers will be customized to fit to your assay repertoire needs.

Multimode microscopy reading is fully supported for a range of six high-quality objectives, selected for their excellent resolution (high numerical aperture) and performing fluorescence characteristics. With the 40x objective, in-plane resolution is 0.35 micron (XY) and a focal depth (Z) of 0.89 micrometer. For ultimate flexibility, three intermediary magnifications allow to adjust the size of objects to the pixel size on the camera CCD chips that is optimal for image analysis.

Do you have some significant customers already for this product?

Yes, one of our first customers is Janssen Pharmaceutica, a Johnson & Johnson company. Additionally, we have recently entered into a collaboration with The Automation Partnership (TAP), in the UK. After a thorough market analysis, MAIA SCIENTIFIC was the only company able to provide a microscopy reader with the flexibility, accuracy, and consistency to meet TAP’s demanding specifications. The Automation Partnership (TAP) is a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of advanced industrial automation solutions for the life sciences industry. TAP provides systems for automating and integrating processes for cell culture, sample management, screening and genomics applications. The MIAS-2 technology will be incorporated into their newest product called Cello. Over 100 TAP cell culture systems are installed at major pharmaceutical companies world-wide and these include Amgen, AstraZeneca, Aventis Pasteur, Avigen, Baxter Vaccines, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer and Roche.

Who would you say are the main competitors to you in this area?

The main competitors are Amersham, Cellomics, Evotec, Universal Imaging and Acumen.

What advantages would you say your system has over those?

One of the main advantages of our system is that it is the only one that can do brightfield microscopy, which allows the researcher to analyze cells without having to stain them or touch them. This promotes long term studies by keeping the cells in their natural environment. Multi-mode analysis is available to do 4 colors, or up to 8 colors of fluorescence.

The other exceptional component is our software. eaZYX™ IMAGING software is the image analysis core software engine. Unlike much image analysis software, eaZYX uses a holistic principle to 'look' at images. It does not segment pixel information to pull forward certain features in the image using a 'pixel-by-pixel' image segmentation. It applies the principles of 'Scale Space' theory to microscopic images (Van Osta et al., 2002). eaZYX uses the entire image content: the pixel features as well as their spatial context to identify objects (groups of pixels) based on shape, spectral and intensity characteristics. These powerful tools were applied to create the patented object-based auto-focusing tools of the MIAS-2 readers (Geusebroek, 2000) that allow robust real-time auto focusing in extreme low light conditions. They also form the basis from which numerous eaZYX-IMAGING applications have been developed.

Additionally, we have our eaZYX-iBOXes, tailored computer hardware to run eaZYX software and MIAS-2 readers. As a stand alone set up, the eaZYX-iBOX is the hardware platform on which you can run image analysis using the eaZYX-IMAGING software. In combination with a MIAS-2 reader and/or robotics, your eaZYX-iBOX will be the centre from which you observe with MIAS-2 or execute screening campaigns with 'plate stack to database-ready result' level automation. You will run the MIAS-2 reader, the robotics and image analysis from your iBOX.

Depending on the nature of your platform (stand alone or with reader/robotics), your research activities, the level of automation needed, your local server and network facilities and the need to perform image analysis while capturing images with MIAS-2, your needs for computing power and image storage capacity may differ.

Further Information: http://www.maia-scientific.com