RTS Life Science says the opening notes of its Symphony will be debuted at at Lab Automation 2005 in San Jose, USA
On 2 February, Simon Sheard, from RTS and Juerg Gentsch, from Novartis, will present the results of their collaborative development of this combined store and ultra-high throughput screening system in a lunchtime workshop session.
The resulting system is capable of generating 1,000,000 data points per day, and of 48 hours unattended operation.
RTS Symphony provides storage for over 1000 compound plates and potentially 1,500,000 compounds.
Thus, on-demand screening against user-defined subsets from the total compound library is now possible for the first time.
The system comprises three integrated modules - a single reformatting lane which provides sample storage, 384-1536 reformatting and assay plate creation, plus dual independent screening lanes.
The show will also provide the venue for the US launch of what RTS cals its breakthrough development in the storage and handling of 384 tubes.
The company has filed four patents for its new 384 tube storage and picking techniques.
It believes its technology is faster, has greater storage density, and is more reliable than any other currently available.
These techniques are fully scalable and will be available for use on all RTS's stores, alongside the company's existing 96 tube storage and handling methods.
Also being shown will be Smartstore, which the company heralded as a 'space odyssey' when it was launched last autumn.
It is said to be the only small, automated store to provide storage for vials, plates and tubes at temperatures from ambient to -20C.
While most narrow aisle stores have 66% storage efficiency, the Smartstore claims 80%.
As a consequence, despite its small footprint (2m wide x 1.5m deep x 2.4m high), it is capable of handling in the region of 260,000 1.4ml microtubes, or 5000 shallow well plates.
