Exploitation and commercialization within the EU FP7 project PASCA

Within recent years, the analysis of single biological cells has emerged as key topic in cell-biology research. Studying cells and cellular functions within large cell populations is still common practice in the life-sciences, but is hampered by several limitations. True access to a cell's physiology, phenotype and genotype can often only be achieved on a single cell level. The European research project "Platform for Advanced Single Cell Analysis" (PASCA) focuses on developing an approach towards inkjet-like printing of single cells. A fully automated prototype instrument for printing of single living cells has been developed, and its potential use is currently being investigated in various biological applications. The various elements of project design, management, and implementation developed within this project to support the commercial exploitation and dissemination of the project results will be discussed. Based on the dedicated project structure of involving external non-funded participants from the beginning of the project and extending it to the preparation of a prototype related market study, various activities aimed at commercializing the project results are presented. We present the lessons learned from those activities alongside the technical results achieved with the PASCA prototype instruments and the perspectives for future commercialization.