Portal’s Universal Delivery Platform Unlocks Novel Workflows

Simple, high throughput mechanical delivery technology. Used standalone or integrated into existing equipment.

Intracellular Delivery is Critical to Many Research and Clinical Applications

The Portal Advantage

Portal excels where others struggle, enabling cytosolic access for diverse cell types and cargoes.

Status Quo

With Portal

How it Works

Portal’s technology enables diverse and multiplexed delivery into cells via a simple diffusion mechanism.

Boost any cargo into any cell, and unlock novel assays and next-gen cell therapies.

Proof Points

Fig. 1: Cellular preservation following processing on the Portal platform was evaluated via RT qPCR transcriptomic analysis of housekeeping genes and pluripotency markers in iPSCs, revealing expression profiles indistinguishable from untreated controls.

Fig. 2: Neuron progenitor cells, a traditionally difficult to transfect lineage due to high sensitivity to ionic flux and electrical stress, exhibited normal morphology and robust expression upon mRNA delivery via Portal’s technology.

Preservation of Cellular Homeostasis and Native State

Mechanoporation enables robust intracellular delivery while preserving cellular homeostasis and viability. RT-qPCR transcriptomic analysis of iPSCs processed on Portal's platform showed housekeeping and pluripotency marker profiles indistinguishable from untreated controls. This confirms maintenance of native cell state and lineage fidelity for translational workflows, cell therapy, and target validation. Additionally, sensitive neural progenitor cells retained normal morphology and achieved high expression after mRNA delivery, demonstrating efficient engineering in high-value primary cell populations without electrical stress or ionic disruption.

Single-step circRNA co-delivery (CD19 CAR and mbIL-12) into primary human T cells enabled simultaneous CRISPR editing and high-level effector expression, boosting cytolytic efficacy while preserving genomic integrity.

High-Fidelity Multiplexing Without Loss of Stoichiometry

Single-step delivery protocols enable concurrent multi-modal engineering, facilitating simultaneous CRISPR-mediated genomic editing and high-magnitude mRNA expression without cargo-specific bias or sequential toxicity. Applying this capability to primary human T cells, co-delivery of circRNA constructs encoding a CD19-targeted CAR and membrane-bound IL-12 (mbIL-12) yielded rapid, high-level expression of both effectors and enhanced cytolytic efficacy while preserving genomic integrity.

Transient Engineering for Rapid, Complex Cell Therapy

Upon boosting with GFP self-amplifying RNA (saRNA), human iPSCs were used to generate cerebral organoids. Delivery of saRNA via Portal’s platform results in long-lasting GFP positive cells and does not disrupt lineage commitment or structural scaffolding during a 20-day cerebral organoid maturation protocol.

Fig. 1: Delivery of the LgBiT protein directly into cells endogenously tagged with HiBiT facilitated precise, real-time kinetic monitoring of PROTAC-mediated target protein degradation.

Fig. 2: Intracellular delivery of an otherwise impermeable Src kinase tracer resulted in dose-dependent competitive displacement by Src small-molecule inhibitors.

Fig. 3: Intracellular co-delivery of the four antibody components of the Lumit immunoassay enabled live-cell, wash-free detection of intracellular kinase phosphorylation following pervanadate stimulation with signal-to-background ratios comparable to conventional lysate-based Lumit workflow.

Direct-to-Biology Insights for Early-Phase Drug Discovery

Direct intracellular delivery of bio-functional probes enables functional live-cell assays in native target contexts without artificial expression models: Direct delivery of LgBiT protein into cells endogenously tagged with HiBiT enabled precise, real-time kinetic monitoring of PROTAC-mediated target protein degradation. Intracellular delivery of membrane-impermeable Src kinase tracer produced dose-dependent competitive displacement by small-molecule inhibitors in live cells. Co-delivery of the four Lumit immunoassay antibody components enabled live-cell, wash-free detection of intracellular kinase phosphorylation following pervanadate stimulation, achieving signal-to-background ratios comparable to lysate-based workflows.

Automated fluidic dispensing with the PDII system demonstrated consistent multi-plate performance when delivering 3 kDa dextran or oligonucleotides into HeLa cells via a cargo pre-plating protocol.

Unified Scalability from Research to High-Throughput Discovery

Portal's mechanical delivery platform moves seamlessly across scales to bridge early discovery and therapeutic manufacturing. The technology's low pressure requirements allow integration with automated liquid dispensers. Because mechanically-mediated poration keeps cell membranes open for ~1 minute, cells can be dispensed into pre-loaded 96- or 384-well cargo plates for rapid, automated delivery in a high-throughput format.

Fig. 1: Portal's clinical-scale MilliBooster cartridges integrate in-line with closed loop cell manufacturing equipment to facilitate gentle and efficient cell engineering.

Fig. 2: Primary human T cells subjected to research-scale B2M CRISPR editing and standard clinical activation demonstrated platform compatibility with clinical manufacturing workflows, maintaining high viability and expanding >80-fold over 10 days.

Fig. 3: Subsequent clinical-scale delivery of GFP mRNA using the MilliBooster integrated with the LOVO system achieved high editing efficiency alongside near-universal expression.

Clinical-Scale Manufacturing and Longitudinal Workflows

Portal's clinical-scale MilliBooster cartridges integrate in-line with closed loop cell manufacturing equipment to facilitate gentle and efficient cell engineering. Longitudinal analysis over a 10-day expansion period demonstrated platform compatibility with multi-step clinical manufacturing workflows in primary human T cells. Unstimulated T cells initially received CRISPR RNPs targeting B2M at research scale before undergoing standard clinical activation, exhibiting high viability and robust expansion exceeding 80-fold up to clinical-scale densities. Subsequent clinical-scale delivery of GFP mRNA using the MilliBooster integrated with the LOVO system achieved high editing efficiency alongside near-universal expression.

What Portal's Technology Does Differently

Portal allows you to answers question directly inside your cell, and design it for any function you need. Check out all kinds of benefits!

No vector, no pulse, no carrier

A physical squeeze does the work, so delivery does not depend on the chemistry of the cargo.

Gentle on the cell

Cells keep their phenotype and function, with no electrical or lipid damage.

Works across cells and cargo

Proteins, RNPs, mRNA, peptides, degraders, and impermeable compounds, across primary cells and lines.

Bench to GMP

The same method from a benchtop run to more than a billion cells a minute.

No vector, no pulse, no carrier

A physical squeeze does the work, so delivery does not depend on the chemistry of the cargo.

Gentle on the cell

Cells keep their phenotype and function, with no electrical or lipid damage.

Works across cells and cargo

Proteins, RNPs, mRNA, peptides, degraders, and impermeable compounds, across primary cells and lines.

Bench to GMP

The same method from a benchtop run to more than a billion cells a minute.

Proven in partner labs

Groups at pharma and academic labs put Portal's platform to work on their own cells and cargo. Each talk below walks through what the team ran and what they found.

WEBINAR

Merck: Degrader permeability without a stable cell line

Merck's discovery group reads degrader permeability and target engagement by boosting the reporter straight into their own cells, rather than building and maintaining a stable line for every target. Delivering a VHL-NanoLuc reporter into AsPC-1 cells lets the team measure degrader activity and kinetics in the relevant cell background, and a p53/MDM2 peptide assay in HCT116 on an automation-integrated Galaxy returns high viability and delivery.

Watch the Webinar

WEBINAR

ABBVIE Rescuing compounds that read as inactive

AbbVie's Small Molecule Therapeutics and Platform Technologies group shows how permeability can hide real compounds, turning active ones into false negatives in a standard assay. Boosting impermeable compounds directly into the cytosol recovers activity that passive uptake misses, including a BRD4 degrader that moves from 82% to 50% protein remaining, while permeable controls behave the same with or without a boost.

Watch the Webinar

Portal technology has been integrated with your favorite tool providers

Products

Gateway

Research Scale

Benchtop instrument for discovery research

0.5-10M cells per run

50-200 µl volume range

compact benchtop unit that fits in any hood

Available now

Galaxy-i

High-Throughput Screening

High throughput scale instrument for screening applications with multi well plates.

96/384-well plate compatibility

Integrate with existing automation

Ideal for DEL, PROTAC, crispr screening

Available now

Millibooster

Clinical Manufacturing

GMP-ready clinical production system

1 billion+ cells/minute throughput

Attach to existing equipment via tube-weld or luer lock connection

2-100mL volume range

Available now

Portal Kits

Validated Workflows

Ready to use kits for every assay

Complete workflows, ready to run.

MicroBooster™ cartridges

Optional white-glove support

Available now

What can Portal enable for you?

Portal enables lots of new, non-obvious applications. Tell us about your work, and we'll give you some suggestions! (Remember AI tools say dumb things sometimes, talking to our team of humans is always best)

Want to try out our technology for yourself?

Tell us about your work and a Portal scientist will share how we can support it.