Cherry pick from 100,000 stored samples in five seconds with this automated compound storage system for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries
TTP LabTech announces the launch of Compound - a new compound storage system for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
The process of screening creates libraries of many thousands of compounds.
These need to be stored in an inert environment (often at low temperatures) which is expensive in terms of space and cost.
Designed as a modular system to fit in any standard lab, Compound offers a particularly cost-effective method of cherry-picking individual tubes from a sample library with unparalleled speed and accuracy.
Each Compound module can store up to 100,000 samples in 1.4ml microtubes within a footprint of only 1.2m x 1.7m x 2.4m.
This ultra-high density storage, and the method of sample retrieval, required a completely novel approach as Jas Sanghera, TTP LabTech's commercial director, explained.
"Compound stores the tubes in carousels of about 4000 tubes each.
Samples are sent to, and retrieved from, storage using air pressure, with the tubes being effectively blown to their destination.
This means that Compound doesn't need robot arms which would require redundant space in which to operate".
Using compressed air not only saves space, it is also extremely quick - a prerequisite for high throughput screening.
Any of the 100,000 tubes can be identified, selected and retrieved in an average of five seconds.
This means that a standard 96-way SBS rack can be made up in only eight minutes, with each Compound module processing up to 15,000 tubes a day.
To ensure accurate identity, each storage tube has a 2D barcode which is read on entry and exit.
Compound is totally self-contained, keeping samples dry in an inert nitrogen environment.
With temperature control from ambient down to -20C, it is suitable for chemical compounds, DNA, oligonucleotides and a range of other samples.
"The Compound system is so flexible that it's ideal for any size of compound library - from that of a small biotech company to those of the major multinational pharma giants" enthuses Dr Sanghera. "Because it is modular, expansion is as simple as adding more Compound modules and for fully automated operation, the Compound system can array, incubate and decap/recap tubes, as well as providing a mechanical interface to downstream liquid handling systems".
