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How it Works: Robotic Personal Workstations

With the rapid pace and high demands of research that dominate today’s research laboratories, scientists require faster, more dependable, and safer means of accomplishing detail-oriented and potentially tedious liquid handling tasks, while producing reliable results that do not waste expensive reagents.

by BioHit
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Problem: With the rapid pace and high demands of research that dominate today’s research laboratories, scientists require faster, more dependable, and safer means of accomplishing detail-oriented and potentially tedious liquid handling tasks, while producing reliable results that do not waste expensive reagents.

As research becomes more sophisticated and the need for researchers to be more efficient rises, robotics have been lending a hand and gaining popularity in the laboratory. While some laboratory tasks can be accomplished through the use of handheld liquid handling instruments and some higher throughput tasks require the use of large robotic systems, there is a growing need for personal workstation platforms that perform at a higher and more efficient level than handheld instruments. Another requirement of such a platform is protecting the user from hazardous material and decreasing a scientist’s risk for Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) without the hassle and complication of a larger robotic system.

Cutline: Biohit’s Roboline™ workstation with software.

Solution: A liquid handling personal workstation is a good solution to automating your pipetting work, including but not limited to cherry picking, reagent aliquoting, viral studies, dilution series, and lipid accession. An automated workstation has the ability to complete pipetting tasks while researchers are free to use their time elsewhere and saves the laboratory as a whole both money and time. Automated workstations also ensure the accuracy and precision of the laboratory results. Additionally, personal workstations can reduce or eliminate Repetitive Strain Injuries and decrease exposure to harmful or toxic solutions, making liquid handling safer.

An automated workstation can also enhance the liquid handling capabilities of laboratories. Biohit has developed a small, quiet, and compact system (347 mm D x 346 mm W x 381 mm H; 13.7” D x 13.6” W x 15.0” H) called the Roboline™ that is a good fit for anywhere in your laboratory, with the ability to automate a single task or an entire application for research needs. Their wide range of applications and ease-of-use, make automated workstations useful for many research environments. In particular, the system’s dispensing module has been engineered to produce accurate and precise results without human error, in a streamlined and efficient manner.

The easy programming and fast dragand- drop function is simple and can be learned in 15 minutes, allowing users to load their work and move on to other tasks quickly. An easy-to-use loading tray also provides easy access to loading and unloading the instrument. Loading trays on instruments such as the Roboline are capable of handling a wide variety of vessels, including: SBSformat deep-well and normal 96-, 48-, 24-, 12- and 6-well plates; laboratory tubes with height 30-95 mm (1.18- 3.74”) and width 8-24 mm (0.31-0.94”); 1.5 and 2.0 ml microtubes, with any combination of tips, plates, tubes; and capillaries with a maximum capacity of 4 full SBS plates and 2 half SBS plates.

Much like a standard pipette, the Roboline can pipette any combination of columns, rows, single wells, or entire plates. Additionally, the closed environment of an automated workstation protects reagents and samples from contamination, and the fully electronic air displacement pipetting operation minimizes error and produces errorfree results. The system is capable of forward pipetting, reverse pipetting, multiple dispensing, and diluting volumes from 5 to 200 μL, using liquid level sensing for error-free, small volume pipetting. The Roboline is also environmentallyfriendly with low energy consumption and a durable design.

For more information about the Roboline, visit www.biohit.com/Roboline or contact richard.miceli@biohit.com with any inquiries.