About CMA

Exploring Tissue Chemistry

Company Overview

CMA Microdialysis (CMA), part of the Harvard Bioscience family of companies, is a life science research tools company devoted to the development, manufacturing, and marketing of microdialysis products.

The company was formed in 1984 and was the first in the world to commercialize microdialysis products and know-how. Instruments and consumables are sold to universities and pharmaceutical companies through a global network of distributors. Today, CMA is the market leader in the development and distribution of microdialysis products, providing unique tools for in vivo monitoring of organ and tissue chemistry.

 
History

The concept of microdialysis was born in the early 1970's. While examining the cross-section of a blood vessel among fluorescent nerve endings, Professor Urban Ungerstedt of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm had the idea of using a dialysis tube as "an artificial blood capillary" in order to monitor chemical events in the tissue. The first paper on microdialysis was published in 1974. Since then, more than 13.000 scientific papers have been published on the technique, among them some 3.000 clinical investigations.  

Since its founding, CMA’s aim has been to develop microdialysis as a standard research tool in academic and industrial laboratories. The CMA 10 Microdialysis Probe, the first commercially produced microdialysis probe, was probably the most significant contribution to the use of microdialysis in neurobiological research. Since then, several additional lines of probes have been developed by CMA to suit many different applications, supporting the rapid increase in the use of the technique.

Today, CMA continues to works in close collaboration with scientists all over the world providing know-how, scientific support, method development, and training courses, while investing in research and development of new and improved microdialysis products.

Our Products

CMA offers a complete range of microdialysis products, developed and produced by a highly specialized and skilled staff at our headquarters in Sweden. Our portfolio includes a broad range of probes, pumps, fraction collectors and complete systems for research. All products are manufactured under high quality standards, and consumables are manufactured in a clean room environment.

Research Applications

For more than thirty years, microdialysis has been used to study brain neurophysiology and the release of neurotransmitters, monoamines, and metabolites, amino acids and other small endogenous compounds. The availability of microdialysis probes for use in the peripheral organs has fueled widespread use in sampling molecules in tissues such as muscle, liver and adipose tissue, as well as in the spinal cord, synovial fluid, vitreous humor and blood.

Today microdialysis is an invaluable tool in drug discovery for in vivo evaluation studies on drug delivery, drug metabolism, PK/PD, bioavailability, bioequivalence and pharmacological efficacy in preclinical studies. It is the only technique that gives simultaneous in vivo temporal information on unbound drug and metabolic levels as well as endogenous compounds in target tissues.