A new automated cell culture and handling is set to revolutionise laboratory practices in the life sciences drug discovery sector
A new automated cell culture and handling system from The Automation Partnership, built around a Stäubli RX60L robot is set to revolutionise laboratory practices in the life sciences drug discovery sector.
Building on the success of its Cellmate system for automated cell culture, The Automation Partnership (TAP) is launching a new, unique, system that brings the benefits of automation into the drug discovery sector.
Like Cellmate, the new system relies on the advanced performance capabilities of Stäubli's RX range of precision robots to faithfully replicate the movements and processes previously performed manually at the lab bench.
The new system, being marketed by TAP as SelecT, is a fully automated system capable of processing small batches of up to 40 different cell lines in parallel to provide overnight assay plates ready for immediate analysis.
The idea for the SelecT system stemmed from a consortium of existing TAP pharmaceutical customers who had experienced through Cellmate the benefits that automation of cell culture techniques had brought to their production processes and now wanted to achieve similar benefits in their drug discovery activities.
SelecT is constructed around a horizontally mounted Stäubli RX60L robot that performs all the handling, incubating and sampling movements on up to 160 T-flasks, all of which are held in the machine.
Each robot movement is smooth and gradual to ensure no damage is caused to the delicate cells.
The JCS gear reduction system of the RX robot ensures steady and controllable application of power at each joint with zero backlash, mimicking precisely each operation just as the lab operator performed them.
The robot can handle both flasks and pipettes and is capable of media exchange and cell sheet rinsing as well as cell splitting to harvest, pool and seed cells into new flasks.
It has the capability to prepare up to 300 assay-ready microtitre plates and can operate unattended outside normal working hours.
The benefit of having a batch of plates ready for analysis on a Monday morning is particularly attractive.
The PC controlled RX60 arm can be easily reprogrammed or modified to suit any specific cell line or process.
All process variables are stored on the PC such as volumes, temperatures and timings as well as the specific robot movements.
Stäubli and TAP have jointly developed the simple control interface, which allows users to alter parameters after the minimum of training.
The robot arm picks up the flask, and smoothly moves to a succession of workstations within the cabinet in accordance with the processing instructions that have been selected on the PC.
On completion the vessel is replaced back into the integral store, held in the temperature-controlled incubator or discarded as specified.
Batches of assay plates are assembled ready for analysis either manually or on one of TAP's automated high throughput screening systems.
This new system meets the growing demand for cell based assays and increases the security of the cell culture lines providing a complete audit trail using bar code tracking.
