Syringe Pumps for Research Applications

Introduction to syringes

A syringe, etymologically defined as a tube used for transferring fluids, has been conventionally used for a variety of scientific and medical purposes since millennia. Perhaps as a testament to its vitality in understanding fluid transmission, some of the earliest experiments carried out by Blaise Pascal to demonstrate fluid motion and pressure parameters (now known as Pascal’s law) required a long syringe.¹ This preliminary model of a syringe has, of course, undergone drastic modifications over the centuries. The modern syringes are compact and disposable, allowing scientists and medical professionals around the world to perform accurate analyses and perform complex surgeries to a far more sophisticated degree. While syringes in modern science are crucial for a wide array of experiments, the scope and versatility of their usage has been dramatically accentuated by the advances made in programmable syringe pumps.

What are Syringe pumps?

Syringe pump systems, also known as syringe drivers, are metering pumps typically utilized in chemical and biomedical research for controlled administration of small amounts of fluid. In 1951, in an era with immense clinical enthusiasm regarding the integration of technology with medicine, the first syringe pump (called Original Perfusor then), as designed by a German group, was introduced to the world.² This primitive model, capable of metering limited volume of fluid through medical syringes at low level of dosage error, has since been modified and refurbished with high-precision gears, computer-assisted programmable parameters and a sophisticated range of stereotaxic features. The modern syringe pumps, especially those provided by Chemyx laboratories, have been engineered to provide peristaltic infusion and precision flow-rate along with many other high-end advantages that make them indispensable in a wide range of disciplines in research.

Use of Chemyx Syringe pumps

In 2016, the FDA released a safety communication describing the potential consequences of using syringe pumps on human patients. The FDA reports that while programmable syringes may have uncertain effects on dose delivery, the current conclusion is that their benefits might outweigh the risks involved.³ However, the use of syringe pumps in research only (non-human fundamental and biomedical research) is indubitably beneficial and has seen immense favorability in the past couple decades. Syringe infusion pumps provided by Chemyx Laboratories are FCC-certified and can be exclusively used for non-human research and biomedical research applications.

Chemyx Fusion 100 Infusion Pump

In the several years of offering these sophisticated programmable pumps to the scientific community, Chemyx has gained remarkable repute as evident by the varied and numerous citations in an increasing number of high-impact research articles. Chemyx syringe pumps have been used for a wide array of published research applications across many disciplines of fundamental and biomedical science.

Syringe Pump Applications in Chemical and Biochemical Research

The fundamental discipline of chemical sciences has an acute requirement for precision fluid transmission in almost all experimentation. Furthermore, most conventional chemical analysis techniques rely on rate-controlled injection of samples, in fluid or gaseous form. The estimation and characterization of pesticides and pollutants from aquatic samples requires Mass Spectrometric analysis which has been reported to be carried out using syringe pumps. Liquid chromatography assisted Mass spectrometry provides further sophistication to this study performed using Chemyx pumps for controlled infusion into the spectrometer.⁴ Furthermore, a recent study demonstrated how Chemyx syringe pumps can be utilized for development and demonstration of a novel sampling device which enhances pharmaceutical analysis.⁵ Coupled with High performance Liquid Chromatography, this sampling device which relies on syringe pumps could potentially improve our ability to monitor a reaction process, making our microfluidic syringe pumps vital in many aspects of chemical sciences.

Needless to say, chemical sciences rarely stay separate from biochemical analysis and other biological experimentations. Here as well, Chemyx syringe pumps have been proven useful, most interestingly in the biocatalytic production of Catechol using a flow microreactor.⁶ This process could have an impact on the pharmaceutical industry as a whole due to the diverse uses of catechol in therapy and research.

Syringe Pump Applications in Molecular Biology

More to the core of fundamental biological research, Chemyx syringe pumps have recently been reported to be used for devising a microfluidic channel to perform multiplex protein microarrays.7 The applications in molecular biology go beyond this usage, since development of high-throughput hybridization assays using capillary tubes and Chemyx syringe pumps has also been reported.8 These capillary-assisted hybridization assays can be used to precisely detect point mutations in genomic DNA, especially without the need for expensive and cumbersome procedures involved in conventional DNA-microarrays, making our microfluidic dosage system extremely valuable for diagnostics and epidemiological research.

Conclusion

As evident from the diversity of syringe pump applications in research, these syringe pumps are potentially useful to most prospective laboratories aimed at exploring avenues in fundamental as well as biomedical sciences.

References

1. Wine East. 22-23. L & H Photo Journalism. 1994. p. 23.
2. RüdigerKramme (ed.): Medical technology: processes, systems, information processing. Springer Science & Business Media, Heidelberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-34102-4, p. 561.
3. Syringe Pump Problems with Fluid Flow Continuity at Low Infusion Rates Can Result in Serious Clinical Consequences: FDA Safety Communication. August 25, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/ucm518049.htm
4. Wille, K., Claessens, M., Rappé, K., Monteyne, E., Janssen, C. R., De Brabander, H. F., et al. (2011) Rapid quantification of pharmaceuticals and pesticides in passive samplers using ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry. Journal of Chromatography A, 1218(51):9162–73.
5. Chisolm, C. N., Evans, C. R., Jennings, C., Black, W. A., Antosz, F. J., Qiang, Y., et al. (2010) Development and characterization of “push–pull” sampling device with fast reaction quenching coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography for pharmaceutical process analytical technologies. Journal of Chromatography A, 1217(48):7471–77.
6. Tomaszewski, B., Schmid, A., Buehler, K. (2014)Biocatalytic production of catechols using a high pressure tube-in-tube segmented flow microreactor. Organic Process Research & Development, 18(11):1516–26.
7. Didar, T. F., Foudeh, A. M., Tabrizian, M. (2011) Patterning multiplex protein microarrays in a single microfluidic channel. Analytical chemistry, 84(2):1012–18.
8. Hommatsu, M., Okahashi, H., Ohta, K., Tamai, Y., Tsukagoshi, K., Hashimoto, M. (2013) Development of a PCR/LDR/flow-through hybridization assay using a capillary tube, probe DNA-immobilized magnetic beads and chemiluminescence detection. Analytical Sciences, 29(7):689–95.