The FLIC system
Birth story
Drosophila is a powerful model organism with rapidly evolving genetic tools. So much so that the technical advancements scientists made over the last several years enabled us to turn on and off a single gene or neuron at will and completely outpaced advancements in behavioral assays. Measurement of fly feeding behavior is one area that was overdue for improvement.
So three scientists from University of Michigan went back to the drawing board, combined their complementary skills in machinery, electronics, and software development to design the dream apparatus that could solve most of the problems. This is what ultimately became the FLIC (Fly Liquid-food Interaction Counter)!
The FLIC system is a complete hardware and software package for collecting and quantifying continuous measures of feeding behaviors in Drosophila.
Ro J, Harvanek ZM, Pletcher SD. FLIC: high-throughput, continuous analysis of feeding behaviors in Drosophila. Roman G, ed. PLoS ONE. 2014;9(6):e101107 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0101107
Where is it now?
As of 2016, the FLIC system has been commercialized with Sable Systems International Inc. The system has been continuously improved and the latest version has been launched at the end of 2021! The latest version is compatible with a newly developed optogenetic accessory! For order information, contact Sable Systems.
As a courtesy, we have published FLIC analysis R scripts that can be used to explore and analyze FLIC data and maintained by Flidea. Please visit here to download the script and help files.
Do you want to modify the FLIC system for your own research need? Contact Flidea.