Application

HIGH-THROUGHPUT Screening Build the workflow that fits your biology.
Make the discoveries.

From droplets to hits – one integrated workflow

Onyx and Styx form a complete droplet microfluidics solution for high-throughput screening. Encapsulate your variant library, run your assay at scale, and sort enriched hits – all within a single, open ecosystem built around your assay, your conditions, and your lab.

HIGH-THROUGHPUT SCREENING Workflow

Millions of assays generated and sorted per session – processes in hours that would take days or weeks by plate-based methods.

01

Sample

Encapsulate cells, nucleic acids, molecules (e.g., plasmids).

Cells
Nuclei
Nucleic acids

Sample encapsulation

Generate monodisperse water-in-oil droplets reliably at scale. Monitor quality, occupancy, and uniformity in real time.

Optional step

Reagent Addition

Introduce reagents or objects precisely. Add substrates or reagents post-encapsulation via pico-injection or merging.

Injection

Introduce homogenous solutions (reagents, substrates)

Merging

Introduce distinct objects (cells, beads, particles)

Technical Note: Addition of Reagents into Microfluidic Droplets

02

Functional assay

Droplets are incubated to let the reaction proceed – cell growth, enzyme activity, protein secretion, or reporter expression. Assays are designed to induce fluorescence in droplets containing the desired targets, enabling downstream sorting by Styx. Screening is based on target activity in its biological context, not just binding affinity.

Substrate
Conversion
Reporter Gene
Expression
Cell
Proliferation
Cell
Killing
Substrate
Degradation
Downstream
Signaling
Ligand
Binding
Molecule
Interaction
Activity
Inhibition
03

Droplet sorting

Reinject into Styx and sort at up to 1,000 Hz across four fluorescence channels. Define your target population with polygonal gating, multiparametric selection, and real-time sort verification.

Recovered positive hits

Recover enriched hits for sequencing, validation, or the next round of engineering.

Applications

STRAIN ENGINEERING

Conventional screening methods capture a fraction of the variant space – leaving most of the library untested. Onyx and Styx let you screen millions of microbial variants in a single session, identifying top performers by enzyme activity, metabolite production, or growth rate before committing to further development rounds.

PROTEIN ENGINEERING

Binding affinity alone does not predict functional performance. Droplet-based functional assays let you screen large protein libraries based on what your variants actually do in their biological context (activity, selectivity, stability), accelerating identification of the candidates worth taking forward.

CUSTOM SCREENING WORKFLOWS

From early assay development to high-throughput selection – Onyx and Styx support every stage. Bring your own chips, your own buffers, your own assay conditions. The platform adapts to your biology.

Two platforms Full workflow

Generate &
Manipulate

  • Monodisperse droplet generation – 10 µL to 50 mL sample volume
  • High‑speed microscopy: up to 4,000 fps – real‑time occupancy, quality, and uniformity analysis
  • Pico‑injection and droplet merging – integrated forcefield generator
  • 4 independent syringe pumps – 0.5 µL/h to 0.5 L/h flow range
  • No chip lock‑in – compatible with commercial and custom PDMS chips
  • Compatible with any optically transparent buffer or media
  • Embedded UI software – full platform control and real‑time monitoring; no installation required
  • Compact and mobile – operates in LAF hoods, cold rooms, clean rooms, and anoxic chambers

Sort &
Enrich

  • Sorting rate: up to 1,000 Hz
  • 4 lasers: 405 / 488 / 561 / 637 nm
  • 4 independent fluorescence detection channels
  • Multiparametric FADS: polygonal gating, subgating, signal duration, mean/peak sorting
  • Dual high‑speed microscopy (1080p) – sort junction and outlet imaging
  • Integrated high-voltage generator – 2 independent channels
  • No chip lock‑in – compatible with commercial and custom PDMS chips
  • Embedded UI software – intuitive sorting control, real‑time bleedthrough correction, and sort verification; no installation required

In applications like cell line development, maintaining genetic consistency requires each line to originate from a single-cell progenitor. However, droplets with selected cells are typically collected in bulk, complicating single-cell isolation.

To overcome this challenge, we've partnered with Seed Biosciences to enable precise transfer of selected cells from droplets into microwell plates for individual cultivation.

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