Patent ID: 7419778

Claim:
A method for screening of responses of viruses, cells or cellular components thereof comprising: (a) providing cells or cellular components on the surface of a solid porous metallo-oxide substrate, wherein said cells or cellular components are mammalian cells, insect cells, yeast cells, fungal cells, plant cells, bacteria, viruses or components thereof, and wherein (i) said solid porous substrate has oriented through-going channels; (ii) said solid porous substrate retains said cells or cellular components on the substrate surface, and wherein, (iii) said solid porous substrate has immobilized therein, within the pores, an array of detector molecules, wherein said detector molecules are nucleic acids, peptides, proteins, antibodies, antibody fragments, enzyme substrates or specific dyes and wherein said detector molecules are appropriate to detect cellular responses to be assayed; (b) delivering test compounds to positions on the substrate corresponding to the arrayed detector molecules on the surface of said solid porous substrate; (c) incubating said test compounds with said viruses cells or cellular components on the surface of the solid porous substrate, under conditions allowing the induction of responses, wherein said responses are chemically-induced or physiological events in said cells; production, secretion or surface exposure of a molecule of interest by said cells; membrane surface molecule activation; receptor activation; transmembrane ion transports; or transcriptional regulations; (d) assaying said responses, wherein responses are detected using said detector molecules; and, identifying and characterizing the responses induced by said test compounds.