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How Rapid Concentration of Dilute Pathogens from Larger Samples Works

A technician’s time and energy is still spent on the slow and tedious sample preparation steps prior to analysis

by InnovaPrep
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InnovaPrep’s Concentrating Pipette Select is a small benchtop instrument that allows users to accomplish pathogen concentration and inhibitor removal from large liquid samples with incredible ease and speed.

Problem: Traditional microbiological methods for detecting pathogens involve an enrichment step because the dangerous pathogens are usually very dilute and the volume used for analysis is so small that the threat is often undetectable.

The most common methods for enriching samples include 150-year-old-techniques—namely, centrifugation, a process that spins liquid samples at high speeds and causes the particles/pathogens to separate from the fluid into a concentrated pellet. This method requires time to spin, manual transfer steps that require some skill, and is restricted to smaller sample volumes. The most common enrichment method is culturing. Culturing is performed by combining the sample with a growth media and incubating over days or weeks for the pathogens to multiply enough to be detected. Regarding viruses, centrifugation and enrichment are even more complex, expensive, and time-consuming.

In the last decade, modern analytical methods have advanced greatly, allowing detection to be performed faster and easier than ever before using rapid molecular methods, but the problem remains the same; a technician’s time and energy is still spent on the slow and tedious sample preparation steps prior to analysis. Even modern analysis methods most often require a concentrated or “enriched” sample.


Solution: InnovaPrep’s Concentrating Pipette Select is a small benchtop instrument that allows users to accomplish pathogen concentration and inhibitor removal from large liquid samples with incredible ease and speed. Users can choose from six high-flow filtered pipette tips to concentrate bacteria, parasites, molds, fungal spores, whole cells, and viruses from up to 5 liters of liquid in minutes. Recovered pathogens are immediately delivered with a press of a button into a final sample volume from 150 microliters to 1 milliliter containing the concentrated pathogens in a clean buffer fluid ready for analysis using your method of choice. The system effectively saves a technician’s hands-on time at the bench, days waiting for growth, and provides consistency and exponentially improved detection. That directly translates to considerable monetary savings, and more importantly, reduced incidences of infection.

Fields of application include, but are not limited to: drinking water, pharma and consumer products, industrial and environmental monitoring, biodefense, human and animal diagnostic research, and spoilage screening in beverages.

InnovaPrep’s 30 pending and awarded patents apply to highly effective collection, concentration and recovery of particles and pathogens from air, surfaces, and liquids. InnovaPrep’s Wet Foam Elution™ enables recovery of particles from filters, membranes, surfaces, and objects to greatly improve detection of contamination, harmful pathogens, and spoilage organisms.

The Concentrating Pipette Select is the new generation of the popular Concentrating Pipette originally launched in 2012 with over 100 systems in use by leading government, industry, and research labs. The new model offers a higher level of efficiency and customization for users with added controls, precision components, and selectable features to provide improved recovery of organisms with higher sample concentration and lower elution volumes.

For more information, please contact info@innovaprep.com or visit www.innovaprep.com