Patent ID: 7399599

Claim:
A method of high throughput testing of the effect of one or more candidate compounds on biological cells, the method comprising: placing cells, solvent voltage sensitive chemical probes, and at least one candidate compound in each of a plurality of wells of a multiwell plate; repetitively exposing said cells to a series of two or more electric fields, wherein said electric fields are produced with electrodes positioned in the solvent in each of said plurality of individual wells, and wherein said electric fields effect a change in transmembrane potential of at least some of said one or more cells without using a patch clamp, wherein said transmembrane potential changes predominantly in a single direction away from a starting transmembrane potential over the course of said series of electric fields due to a continuing and additive accumulation of charge in said cells over the course of said series of electric fields; and monitoring, without using a patch clamp, changes in the transmembrane potential of cells in each of said plurality of wells by monitoring emission from said voltage sensitive chemical probes to test the effect of said one or more candidate compounds on said cells in a parallel assay high throughput manner.