Nanolitre liquid handler(s)

The liquid handling robots currently used by NGI operates on a wide volume range which is necessary for many sample preparation protocols, but that also means they are not optimised for small volumes. NGI seeks to complement these robots by adding equipment specialized to accurately pipette small volumes, with the aim to improve precision in quantitation assays, normalisation of sample concentrations and pooling.

Invitation to participate in procurement

KTH intends to purchase a system consisting of one or more pipetting robots capable of transferring nanoliter scale volumes between and within 96- and 384-well microplates using disposable tips. Performance in this volume range should be significantly better than current equipment. To integrate smoothly into the lab workflow it must be able to operate on plates that are currently used. It must be capable of handling liquid types with physical properties typically encountered in these applications.

The liquid handling robots currently used by NGI operates on a wide volume range which is necessary for many sample preparation protocols, but that also means they are not optimised for small volumes. NGI seeks to complement these robots by adding equipment specialized to accurately pipette small volumes, with the aim to improve precision in quantitation assays, normalisation of sample concentrations and pooling.

Invitation to participate in procurement

KTH intends to purchase a system consisting of one or more pipetting robots capable of transferring nanoliter scale volumes between and within 96- and 384-well microplates using disposable tips. Performance in this volume range should be significantly better than current equipment. To integrate smoothly into the lab workflow it must be able to operate on plates that are currently used. It must be capable of handling liquid types with physical properties typically encountered in these applications.

Introduction

The National Genomics Infrastructure (NGI) hosted at Science for Life Laboratory and the School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health processes hundreds of samples every month for researchers in Sweden, allowing access to massively parallel sequencing using technologies that demand significant investments in instruments and data processing infrastructure.With the capacity of sequencing instruments having evolved at a rapid rate, sample preparation to a larger degree becomes the limiting step.

NGI has since the start put a lot of effort into automating sample and data processing in order to increase throughput but also to ensure reproducibility and traceability in line with the ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation held. NGI have been very active in developing protocols for liquid handling robots internally, tailored to the requirements of the applications that are offered to the facility’s users, and is constantly adding to that repertoire of methods.