Well hello, Alto
Meet the world’s first digital SPR system offering a new approach: cartridge-based kinetics and affinity data from only 2µL of sample.
Altogether better SPR
Alto integrates digital microfluidics and nanosensors, making it the world’s first digital SPR instrument.
Alto redefines SPR, with 16 channels of innovative DMF and nanosensors in one disposable cartridge that contains your entire experiment. The result: a technology that offers the ease of use of BLI and the high-quality data of traditional SPR.
Small cartridge, big impact
Alto’s integrated cartridge combines 16 parallel sensors with all of the samples, reagents and buffers needed for an SPR assay. Automated serial dilutions of each sample are performed on the cartridge, allowing for measurement of up to 240 total binding curves in one experiment—all without user intervention. Once the assay is complete, cleaning up is as simple as removing the cartridge.
Versatility Comes Standard
With a wide range of supported applications and sample types, Alto is designed to meet your SPR needs. This includes:
Assay Modules
- Kinetics/Affinity Characterization (single-cycle, multi-cycle)
- Kinetics/Affinity Screening
- Epitope Binning/Mapping
- Quantitation
- Custom Protocols
Sample Compatibility
- Serum
- Cell lysate
- Cell culture supernatant
- Crude samples
Molecule Types
- Proteins
- Antibodies
- Peptides
- Oligonucleotides
- Virus, VLP, exosomes
- Carbohydrates
- AAVs
Reliable, high-quality data
Alto is trusted by scientists everywhere to deliver consistent, publication-quality kinetics data that’s reproducible across instruments, cartridges, and users—again and again.
Customer Spotlight: How CROs can access SPR with Alto
Like many global CROs, Radix BioSolutions had been considering SPR, but limiting factors pushed them away from traditional instruments, including high cost, maintenance requirements, and complexity. Introducing Alto allowed for faster assay optimization, operational efficiencies, and new service offerings that helped grow their business.
Applications
Basic Research
Mechanism of signaling, action analyses
Alto enables high-throughput binding kinetics and affinity measurements from ultra-low volumes, empowering interaction characterization studies with precision and ease.
Biopharmaceutical Drug Discovery
Protein, antibody, peptide, and oligo candidates
Alto simplifies the lead identification process with high-throughput screening, reliable real-time kinetics, microsample usage, wide dynamic ranges, and automation.
- Hybridoma library screening and quantitation
- Antibody-antigen, Antibody-Fc receptor kinetics
- Developability testing
- Epitope binning
Drug Development
Alto streamlines therapeutic development with high-throughput, automated binding kinetics and affinity from antibodies to peptides, supporting epitope binning and biosimilar testing while enabling regulatory-ready data capture and minimal sample consumption.
- Antibody Titer
- Cross-species reactivity assays
Vaccine R&D
Alto simplifies testing and saves resources, adapting to your testing needs to provide unmatched power, while delivering rapid, high-quality results without compromise.
- Antigen characterization
- Antibody binding assays in serum
- Virus-like particle characterization
Applied Research
Alto empowers applied research with rapid, low-volume binding kinetics and affinity measurements. Ideal for reagent validation and assay development, this instrument can deliver reliable, label-free data from crude or purified samples.
- Reagent characterization (quality assessment)
Custom Protocols
Alto supports flexible assay development through Nicoya’s Custom Protocol Services. This allows your lab to work directly with our engineers to design and implement your own unique assays that are not available on other platforms, accelerating development and unlocking the full potential of DMF.
Digital microfluidics: the future of SPR
Digital microfluidics (DMF) is a liquid handling technology for manipulating nanoliter-sized droplets across an array of electrodes. Contained within the Alto Cartridge, DMF brings the samples and buffers to the SPR sensor without the need for the pumps, tubing, or flow cells used by traditional label-free systems. This means Alto is compatible with crude samples (like serum, lysate, and cell culture supernatant), while eliminating the need for maintenance—saving you time, money, and resources.
Beyond dramatically increasing ease of use, DMF cartridge design breaks traditional SPR limitations by:
- Decoupling interaction time from sample volume: With its DMF-powered droplet oscillation, Alto Digital SPR is designed to enable unlimited sample interaction time without any sample dispersion or evaporation. This allows users to optimize ligand-analyte interactions without being limited by flow rate or sample volume.
- Improving assay flexibility and scalability: Division of fluid into independently programmable units for manipulation results in a system that can be reorganized to provide new functionality on demand (Custom Protocols) or scaled based on experimental requirements.
- Improving precision and accuracy: DMF-based cartridges that automate sample manipulation allow Alto users to reduce hands-on and sample preparation times by up to 70%, which cuts user-to-user variation, and improves reproducibility.
Nicosystem: Software for every scientist
Alto’s comprehensive software provides a centralized hub for acquisition and analysis of real-time binding data, while offering an intuitive user interface, one-click assay analysis, and the flexibility of accessing and sharing your experiments from anywhere.
Alto GxP Suite: Supporting regulated labs
The Alto GxP software expansion is specifically designed to support compliance with the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 guidelines around electronic records, including access controls, electronic signatures, comprehensive audit trails, and more.
Alto Automation Suite: Delivering 24/7 SPR analysis
The Alto Automation Suite is the world’s first fully automatable SPR system, and is designed to eliminate common automation challenges while empowering scientists to perform 24/7 unattended SPR analysis without worry.
Product Specifications
| Category: | Specification: |
|---|---|
| Throughput | 16 channels; up to 48 interactions / 240 binding curves |
| Sample Volume | Minimum 2 μL |
| Cartridge Types | Multiple surface chemistries; crude-compatible |
| Technology | Digital microfluidics + LSPR biosensors |
| Automation | Automation compatible with software API; Automated sample/buffer movement, serial dilutions, robotics compatible |
| Maintenance | Minimal |
| Footprint | Benchtop system – 1H x 1W x 1.5D (ft) |
| Affinity Range | pM – mM |
| Applications | Kinetics, affinity, screening, quantitation, epitope binning/mapping, custom protocols |
Resources
Analysis of antibody-antigen binding kinetics on Alto Digital SPR using mouse Fc-specific capture reagents
Overview Mouse Fc-specific capture reagents can be used to capture mouse antibodies or Fc-tagged proteins directionally. These capture reagents offer an optimal orientation for analyte…
Nicoya Alto CBX Cartridge Sensor Performance
With Alto, Nicoya’s Digital surface plasmon resonance™ (SPR) platform, the entirety of the fluidic control and sensing is done on single-use disposable cartridges. High accuracy…
Uncovering New Tools to Analyze Cytokine–Receptor Interactions: How Conigen Bioscience Used Nicoya’s Alto™ Digital SPR to Characterize Novel Dimeric Receptors
Presenters: Michael Piazza, PhD AVP, Applications Development Nicoya Lifesciences Alyssa Ball, PhD Professor, Assay Development Scientist Conigen Bioscience Overview Understanding cytokine-receptor interactions is critical for…
Are you ready to experience Alto?
Talk to our team and learn how you can accelerate your scientific research.
