PIXUL: On the Leading Edge of Chromatin Shearing (Karol Bomsztyk and Tom Matula)

2020-01-28

In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we caught up with Karol Bomsztyk M.D. and Tom Matula, Ph.D. from the University of Washington and Matchstick Technologies, to talk about their work on DNA and chromatin sonication. During his career, Karol's research has focused on improving ChIP protocols to make them faster, easier and higher throughput. First, to make ChIP assays faster, Karol and his lab developed "Fast-ChIP". More recently, he adjusted this protocol to improve throughput and "Matrix-ChIP" was born. Tom is an expert in...

During his career, Karol's research has focused on improving ChIP protocols to make them faster, easier and higher throughput. First, to make ChIP assays faster, Karol and his lab developed "Fast-ChIP". More recently, he adjusted this protocol to improve throughput and "Matrix-ChIP" was born. Tom is an expert in the field of ultrasound and cavitation and the Director of the Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound at the University of Washington.

To further improve and speed up the 96-well "Matrix-ChIP" protocol, Karol and Tom teamed up to found Matchstick Technologies and develop a sonication device that would be able to processes each and every well of a 96-well microplate consistently and quickly. The result of this cooperation is the PIXUL Multi-Sample Sonicator that is now available for order from Active Motif.

PIXUL is an ultrasound-based sample preparation platform that was designed completely from the ground up to provide researchers with an easy-to-use tool that is simple to set up, simple to use, and generates consistent results day in and day out. No other sample preparation platform out there can match the power and convenience of PIXUL.

PIXUL was conceived by an epigenetics researcher, and designed and built by ultrasound engineers to take the guesswork out of sample preparation. With PIXUL, sample preparation is no longer an art form, but instead a simple and predictable part of experiments that work every single time.

This interview goes into the mechanism behind sonication-based shearing of DNA and chromatin and highlights how PIXUL is different from existing sonication instruments.

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