You run your assay. Cells looked healthy at hour 0. Dead at hour 48. What happened in between? If you're using ELISA, flow cytometry, or western blotting the answer is: you'll never know.

These methods show the before and after, BUT the critical moments…

…when cells signal each other

…when gradients form

…when subpopulations drive different outcomes

stay invisible.

Instead, you can watch proteins move between living cells in real time. No labels. No fixation. No guesswork about what happened in those missing hours.

Using standard light microscopes, we profile the secretome from your living cells. Whether you're studying tumor microenvironments, wound healing models, or stem cell differentiation, the kinetic data show who secreted what, when, and where.

• Live Kinetic Data: Measure secretion as it happens, minute by minute, not hour by hour. Catch secretion bursts during migration, division, or morphology changes, not hours later.
• Spatial Mapping: Identify which cells drive secretion and where gradients form. Track signals moving through cultures, spheroids, or tissue at single-cellular resolution.
• Correlated Analysis: Link secretion to cell morphology, fluorescent markers, and behavior. Connect molecular signals to cellular outcomes, no separate experiments needed.
• Expert Interpretation: We design experiments that answer your question, analyze your data, and deliver publication-ready figures with guidance for your next experiments.

ELISA and Multiplex Bead Assays

Report population averages. You know cytokines are present, but not which cells produced them, when, or where.

Two cultures with identical ELISA results can have completely different paracrine profiles. You'd never know from the ELISA alone.

Flow Cytometry

Requires fixation and permeabilization, killing cells before measurement. You see intracellular markers at a single timepoint, not real-time secretion from living cells.

Scratch Assays and Wound Closure Models

Measure migration speed and percent closure, but hide which cells trigger the chemokine and growth factor bursts that steer the repair process.

The result? You're making critical decisions based on snapshots and averages. The dynamic cell-to-cell signaling driving variability, drug resistance, and tissue organization? It's been invisible.

Plasmonic imaging provides continuous, real-time measurement of secretion at the single-cell level with spatial resolution. You see which cells secrete, when they secrete, and where the signals travel.

This label-free method detects and quantifies biomolecules binding to a surface in real time. The technology uses a localized version of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to measure protein binding without fluorescent tags, dyes, or labels that can interfere with natural cell behavior.

The technology is compatible with standard light microscopy, works with fluorescence imaging, and can be multiplexed to detect 4+ targets simultaneously.

Built on technology licensed from the US Naval Research Laboratory, our plasmonic imaging platform is now ready for routine use in academic and pharmaceutical research labs.

Does this replace your current assays? Not entirely. Plasmonic imaging complements rather than replaces traditional methods. Use ELISA when you need high-throughput screening of many samples at defined endpoints.

Use plasmonic imaging when dynamic, spatially resolved data would answer questions that population averages and snapshot measurements cannot. For mechanistic studies, understanding cellular heterogeneity, and connecting molecular signals to real-time cell behavior, plasmonic imaging reveals what's been hidden.

All tiers include: Raw and processed data files in standard formats, high-resolution images suitable for publication, and detailed methods descriptions. You retain full rights to your data and can publish freely with appropriate citation of Nanocrine services.

All tiers include: Raw and processed data files in standard formats, high-resolution images suitable for publication, and detailed methods descriptions. You retain full rights to your data and can publish freely with appropriate citation of Nanocrine services.