Equipment
Thermo Spinnaker System I
Flex Station II: 96 and 384 well plate reader (Molecular Devices): GPCR and ion channel assays and general fluorescence applications.
Victor 3V: 96 or 384 and 1536 well : UV-VIS absorbance, luminescence, fluorescence polarization, fluorescence, time resolved fluorescence assay.
Biomek FX: Liquid handler for compound transfer and cherry picking. It is equipped with a custom built pin tool and transfers 384 compounds in 85 seconds.
Thermo Spinnaker robotic arm on a rail: delivers and transfers plates from plate hotels or incubators onto the liquid handlers, plate readers, etc.
Liconic STX 220: CO2 plate incubator with a capacity of 220 plates.
Multidrop 384: (Thermo LabSystems): manifold liquid dispensing. This instrument is useful for accurately delivering a fixed amount of liquid rapidly (about 25 seconds) into either 96 or 384 well plates and plating of cells.
ELx 405 plate washer, Bio-Tek Instruments: well washing, aspiration, dispensing. This instrument would be useful in performing assays which require multi-step aspiration from and dispensing into wells.
Aquamax DW4: Liquid handling system that integrates four-fluid dispensing and washing for 96, 384, amd 1536 well washing.
Lidding station: Automated storage of lids.
All devices are integrated under Momentum software for walk-away automation.
Thermo Spinnaker System II
An linear rail based system which is dedicated to high-content screening.
ImageXpress Confocal (Molecular Devices): A high throughput spinning disk microscope that also doubles as wide field microscope and can be used for phenotypic screens requiring optical sectioning, subcellular localization, mitochondrial morphology evaluation and other demanding applications. We have over 200TB storage capacity integrated and high speed data analysis capabilities as well as custom module editor software to simplify complex analysis workflows.
Envision: High speed plate reader for 96 or 384 and 1536 well plates in the following modes: UV-VIS absorbance, luminescence, fluorescence polarization, fluorescence, time resolved fluorescence assay as well as alpha screening.
Thermo Spinnaker robotic arm on a rail: delivers and transfers plates from plate hotels or incubators onto the liquid handlers, plate readers, etc.
Cytomat 6001: CO2 plate incubator with a capacity of over 180 plates.
ELx 406 plate washer, Bio-Tek Instruments: well washing, aspiration, dispensing. This instrument would be useful in performing assays which require multi-step aspiration from and dispensing into wells. It is also equiped with dual syringe dispensers as well as a peristaltic pump for reagent addition.
All devices are integrated under Momentum software for walk-away automation.
Other instruments available:
Qbot: Colony picker and arrayer (Genetix). This instrument has a 72 plate capacity and is used in high-throughput sequencing projects as well as for library construction and maintenance. It uses 96 and 384 well plates, omni-trays and is equipped with a video camera for automated colony recognition and blue-white screening.
Precision 2000: A 12 channel liquid handler (Bio-Tek) which can be used in a steril bench and adresses 96 and 384 well plates.
Various Multidrop 384’s: (Thermo LabSystems) This instrument is useful for accurately delivering a fixed amount of liquid rapidly into either 96 or 384 well plates and plating of cells.
Acumen Explorer (TTP Labtech): This laser scanning cytometer is currently the fastest high content screening system available. It enables cell-by-cell readouts resulting in a flow-cytometer like data structure useful for phenotypic screening. Examples are screens based on translocation events from the nucleus to the cytosol, cytotoxicity screens and even cell cycle based screening is possible.
ImageXpress (Molecular Devices): A high throughput epifluorescence microscope which can be used for phenotypic screens requiring the highest quality images such as neurite outgrowth, translocation and certain cell toxicity screens. We have a phase contrast option enabling label free phenotypic screening of zebrafish. Using special objectives and analysis modules, even difficult phenotypes such as the of uptake of bacteria by mammalian cells can be quantified. This systen is integrated with an incubator using a custom Denso robotic arm.
Biosorter (Union Biometrica): The BioSorter® is a continuous flow system capable of analyzing, sorting and dispensing objects ranging in size from 10 to 1,500 µm. It is useful for sorting zebrafish, C.Elegans, organoids, spheroids and other large objects based on either fluorescence or backscatter/size. Moreover, the MSSR has fitted this biosorter with an in house built aerosol management system that enables us to sort live particles into 96 or even 384 well plates and we can define the number of objects and characteristics of the objects on a per well level enabling screening of large biological objects with defined parameters.
Mantis(Formulatrix): Low dead-volume, non-contact liquid dispenser that can up to six reagents that allows dispensing complex plates and assay development experiments down to 100nL volumes.