Applied Biosystems has introduced the Attune Acoustic Focusing Cytometer, a cytometry system that uses sound waves to precisely control the movement of cells.
The Attune offers customers enhanced sample throughput, sensitivity and accuracy for a range of cell-biology applications.
Flow cytometry allows scientists to count and examine cells by passing them through a laser-based detection device.
Thousands of cells per second can be counted, allowing rapid characterisation of entire cell populations.
Cellular biologists engage in flow cytometry for a rapidly growing range of applications, including the study of proteins expressed by cells (immunophenotyping), quantifying the amount of DNA in cells and cell counting, among others.
Attune enables scientists to gather statistical data on a large number of heterogeneous cells to study parameters within a cell population, including size, complexity, phenotype and health.
Attune's proprietary technology allows scientists to achieve enhanced sensitivity, saves time by increasing throughput, and can be used with small sample sizes.
Its compact acoustic technology results in a small footprint and smaller volume of consumables required to perform an experiment.
These capabilities enable scientific applications not previously possible on traditional cytometry systems, ranging from sample preparation to bead-based analyses.
'This instrument is ideally suited for cell signalling and rare-event applications where sensitivity is critical,' said Nicolas Barthelemy, president of cell systems at Life Technologies.
'In flow cytometry, acoustic focusing enables both longer transit times and higher throughput, which simultaneously permits better interrogation of every cell in a sample as well as the analysis of much larger numbers of cells,' added Mike Olszowy, head of flow cytometry at Life Technologies.
