Patent ID: 8426201

Claim:
A method of high throughput characterization of the biological activity of one or more candidate compounds, the method comprising: placing a population of cells, solvent, and voltage sensitive dyes, into an area of observation in each of plurality of wells of a multiwell plate; exposing said population of cells to at least one candidate compound; exposing said population of cells in each of the plurality of wells to electric fields using extracellular electrodes positioned in the solvent of the plurality of wells to produce a change in transmembrane potential of said population of cells while exposed to said compound; wherein said electric fields comprise a first pulse series of multiple pulses and a second pulse series of multiple pulses with a pause between the first pulse series and the second pulse series; monitoring the transmembrane potential of said population of cells; and comparing the transmembrane potential of said population of cells in response to said electric fields at a first portion of said first pulse series with the transmembrane potential of said population of cells in response to said electric fields at a first portion of said second pulse series to test the effect of said one or more candidate compounds on said cells in a parallel assay high throughput manner.