Helena Biosciences has launched the V8 instrument, which combines capillary electrophoresis and agarose electrophoresis for screening and monitoring of cancers, blood diseases and immune deficiencies.
Capillary electrophoresis is capable of intelligent automation, while agarose electrophoresis delivers a wider spectrum of 'gold standard' tests for a number of different disease states.
V8 delivers an automated system for serum protein screening and intelligent diagnosis.
It allows the operator to switch to gel electrophoresis on demand.
Sample preparation for additional tests is automated, which are carried out on the SAS family of instruments.
Combined sets of capillary and gel data can then be analysed with the Platinum 4V software package.
Helena Biosciences said combining the strength of two assay platforms gives the user more freedom to analyse their samples by the method they determine most appropriate, while benefiting from automated sample handling, data capture and semi-automated analysis.
The support for combined platform analysis built into Platinum 4V enables the operator to use different analysis methods simply and without having to re-rack samples for different systems.
The V8 instrument will prepare samples for off-board gel analysis while all results are stored in a common database and can be queried by the same parameters.
For example, a serum sample may be analysed by CE and an abnormality detected, which is then typed by IFE on the gel system.
Platinum will automatically display this combined data set for analysis.
