RTS Life Science is to supply four Saliva and RNA stabilised blood-processing systems to the UK Biobank.
UK Biobank, a project aiming to advance public health in the 21st Century, was officially opened by Princess Anne in July 2009, and is now over half way through its collection of participant samples across the UK.
An additional two samples, saliva and blood for RNA isolation, will be collected from the remaining participants and the new RTS automation will allow up to 800 samples to be processed per day.
RTS originally supplied a High Throughput Blood fractionation system for UK Biobank to process centrifuged EDTA, serum-separator and plasma-separator tubes, enabling the retrieval of the plasma, serum, buffy coat and red blood cells.
Since the implementation of these systems two years ago, RTS has released a second generation 'blood fractionation' system (ABF500).
The ABF system has been refined so that it can process saliva and RNA stabilised blood samples with minimal instrument preparation required to run either sample type.
The user only needs to change the deck layout and select the correct software process.
The ASP (Automated Sample Processor) 800 will process up to 800 saliva or RNA stabilised blood samples per day into two and six 850ul aliquots respectively.
RTS's Esprint software will provide complete sample tracking and the production of a full audit trail.
