Bulk Dispenser Upgrades Liquid Handling Capabilities for High Throughput Screening

A bulk dispenser head is now available as an add-on feature that extends the capabilities of an automated nanoliter liquid handling instrument.

The TTP LabTech’s (Royston, United Kingdom) “mosquito HTS” (high throughput screen) is a new member of the “mosquito” line of liquid handling instruments. In this case, the technology has been modified to best offer precision sampling of individual wells in various microplate formats. In addition, the instrument can be programmed to obtain samples from nonstandard plate formats or from other sources such as glass cover slips.

Each mosquito micropipette has its own stainless steel piston offering true positive displacement pipetting. Tips do not become blocked or clogged, and solutions are aspirated and dispensed accurately with no dead volumes, no matter what the liquid type, viscosity, surface tension, or environmental conditions.

Now labs operating the mosquito HTS instrument have the opportunity to augment its capabilities with a new add-on head that provides bulk reagent dispensing from eight independent channels. This offers assay miniaturization through precise pipetting of compounds in up to 384-well microplates. The bulk reagent dispenser uses disposable, positive displacement pipettes that ensure zero cross-contamination and low dead volumes and transforms the capabilities of the mosquito’s proven nanoliter liquid handling into a highly flexible system for high throughput screening laboratories.

The mosquito HTS can be easily programmed to perform traditional serial dilutions by aspirating, dispensing, and mixing across a plate – but in miniaturized volumes ranging from 25 nL to 1,200 nL. By employing a variety of tube diameters and a high-precision peristaltic pump, the mosquito HTS bulk dispenser offers a high degree of flexibility for different assays, plate types, volumes, and plate maps. User-friendly software is integrated into the standard mosquito user interface and allows noncontact bulk dispense operations to be carried out in conjunction with pipetting operations.

The new bulk dispense head, which attaches directly to the mosquito HTS pipetting head, can be fitted in the field by TTP LabTech service engineers.

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