The interaction between an effector cell (CAR-T, TCR or NK) with a cancer cell is a dynamic process of engagement where the total strength of binding, otherwise known as cell avidity, between the two gives tremendous insight into the future function of that cell.

Methods to select the best immunotherapeutic effector cell by Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) only evaluate the biochemical affinity, and ignore all other interactions taking place within the immune synapse. At the same time, functional assays such as IFN-γ secretion and cell killing, are more predictive of effector cell response in vivo but are time-consuming and can be inconsistent between experiments or assays.

Here we present the z-Movi^® Cell Avidity Analyzer: a new solution that can effectively measure the cell binding avidity between hundreds of single cells in a single run. This fast and simple workflow results in predictive and reproducible data that can be compared against any immune product.

The z-Movi essentially sets up a killing assay, but instead of letting the effectors kill, it employs an acoustic force to pull them apart – breaking the immune synapse – which lets you directly quantify the binding strength between 400 effector-target pairs – all in about 10 minutes. Furthermore measuring the strength of the immunologic synapse, the earliest possible event for a functional assay, is a highly accurate and reproducible method that can separation even small differences between CAR-T and TCR constructs, reducing the can reduce the noise and variability found in other functional assays.