About
Fluidigm is a biotech tools company that creates microfluidic-based chips and instrumentation for biological research.
The Invention
Fluidigm co-founder Stephen Quake invented a microscopic valve while he was teaching at Caltech in 1998. Much the way a transistor controls the flow of electrons in a computer chip, Fluidigm’s microfluidic valve performs the same function for the life sciences industry in a microfluidic chip made of rubber. Quake and Gajus Worthington founded Fluidigm in 1999. Worthington is the company’s president and chief executive officer, while Quake is head of Fluidigm's Scientific Advisory Board, co-chair of the bioengineering department at Stanford University, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
In the late 1990s, most microfluidic experts came from the semiconductor industry and preferred substrates like silicon, glass or plastic, but not Fluidigm. Quake’s invention created the chip out of fusing multiple layers of rubber. That substrate is unique within the bio-chip industry and is illustrative of how Fluidigm has pioneered its path to creating a variety of PCR-based solutions.
A Decade of Successive Inventions
Today, Fluidigm’s technology enables the rapid, efficient, highly parallel, and reproducible analysis of tens-to-hundreds of genetic markers, across hundreds-or-thousands of DNA samples, in hours instead of days or weeks. Fluidigm’s technology supports genomics-based applications such as single-cell gene expression, high sample throughput SNP genotyping and ground-breaking capabilities such as digital PCR and automated target enrichment for next-generation sequencing.
Select BioSciences, an independent research company, said in a January 2010 report on Single Cell Analysis (SCA) that “Fluidigm is the leading microfluidics company for SCA… [and that] Fluidigm is well-positioned to become a leader in SCA.”
The company’s headquarters are located in South San Francisco, California, and its worldwide manufacturing is performed in its factory in Singapore. Today approximately 200 people work for Fluidigm worldwide.
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1999 Founding of Fluidigm Corporation (originally Mycometrix) to commercialize IFC technology developed in the laboratory of biophysicist Stephen Quake, PhD.
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2003 Launch of the TOPAZ® System for Protein Crystallization, including integrated fluidic circuits (IFCs) that assemble 768 crystallization conditions in parallel and instrumentation and software that automate the digital imaging and analysis of experiments.
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2004 Development of intellectual property around a new class of IFCs referred to as Dynamic Array™ IFCs and of prototypes yielding as many as 9,216 parallel data points.
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2005 Opening of a 15,000 square-foot IFC fabrication facility in Singapore.
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2006 Launch of the BioMark™ System for Genetic Analysis, a multi-application hardware/software platform based on Fluidigm Dynamic Array IFCs. Introduction of the BioMark™ system heralded a practical solution for ultra-sensitive detection by PCR.
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2006 Launch of the 12.765 Digital Array IFC to provide absolute counting of target molecules, often within samples as small as a single cell. The Digital Array™ IFC is the method of choice to achieve such quantification is known as digital PCR, which has been too impractical for routine use until now.
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2007 Launch of high-throughput genotyping on the BioMark System, enabling breakthroughs for the study of genetic variation within large populations.
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2007 Launch of the Fluidigm 48.48 Dynamic Array IFC for the first time in microfluidics provided matrix chip architecture that enabled both a high density of experiments (2,304 per chip) and effective mixing of nano-volume scale fluids.
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2008 Launch of the Fluidigm 96.96 Dynamic Array IFC which is capable of performing 9,216 simultaneous real-time PCR experiments in nanoliter quantities. This new generation IFC enabled life science researchers to achieve new levels of cost and logistical efficiency and flexibility, as well as comprehensive profiling from miniscule amounts of sample.
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2008 Launch of the Fluidigm EP1 System for genetic analysis. The new system provideds Fluidigm’s the most efficient system for high sample throughput SNP genotyping and end point digital PCR. It allows extremely low running costs and provides the easiest workflow for low to mid multiplex SNP genotyping.
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2009 Launch of the Fluidigm 48.770 Digital Array IFC, the highest density commercially available integrated fluidic circuit (IFC) ever. This IFC is capable of testing up to 48 individual samples at a time and automatically partitioning each of the samples into separate sets of 770 reaction chambers – delivering a total of 36,960 simultaneous digital PCR reactions.
2009 Launch of the Fluidigm Access Array™ System specifically designed to support high-throughput re-sequencing, targeted enrichment, sample barcoding, and library preparation for sequencing using amplicon tagging.
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2010 MIT’s Technology Review magazine selects Fluidigm Corporation as one of the top 50 most innovative companies in the world.
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2010 Launch of the reusable FR48.48 Dynamic Array IFC – the world’s first reusable bio-chip for the SNP genotyping market. This chip begins a new era of ultra-low cost, high sample throughput SNP genotyping and marks the beginning of Fluidigm’s drive toward one-penny-per-data point.
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2011 Launch of the BioMark™ HD Real-time PCR System, the company’s most advanced instrument for genomic analysis ever. The BioMark HD System provides the sensitivity and throughput needed to study gene expression down to the single-cell level -- especially those who have limited amounts of sample or study rare populations of cells.
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2011 Fluidigm complete its initial public offering. The shares trade on The NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol “FLDM.”
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2011 Fluidigm Singapore factory has manufactured and shipped more than 1 billion microscopic NanoFlex™ valves. Each NanoFlex valve is so small that it takes 10 to span the width of a human hair.
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2011 Launch of Fluidigm assays and primers optimized for the company’s integrated fluidic circuit technology. The products are marketed as DELTAgene™ Assays (gene expression), SNPtype™ Assays (SNP genotyping), and Access Array™ Target-specific Primers (target enrichment for next-generation sequencing).
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2011 Launch of the 192.24 Dynamic Array™ IFC, designed to genotype 192 samples against 24 SNP assays in a single run, providing 4,608 data points in just one hour.
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| # | 2012 Unveiling of C1 Single-Cell AutoPrep System
Fluidigm China opens its doors
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