Labman Automation High Throughput Replicators
With major developments in the early nineties of plate reading technologies, new assay techniques and the availability of MTP plates all the major pharmaceutical companies embarked on high throughput screening campaigns of their compound libraries in the quest to discover the next "big new drug".A major bottleneck in this process was quickly identified to be the production of plate copies from source libraries to undertake screening.
Glaxo Wellcome, quick to spot an opportunity, chose Labman Automation as their original automation partners and together over a period of years developed 3 generations of high throughput replicating systems culminating with a fully automated liquid store.
The Labman Automation First Generation Replicator
Built at Labman Automation and installed at the Glaxo Wellcome research facility in Greenford this first generation plate replicating system used the first Tomtec Quada 96 well dispensing unit in the whole of Europe. Claimed to be one of the first, if not the first, true 96 to 96 well replicator in the UK it featured:
- A hotel-stacking unit for 60-daughter plate
- Barcode reading
- Inkjet printing
- Capacity for 6 sets of 96 tips
- MTP lidding and de-lidding
- Capacity for 6 mother deep well blocks
- Online tip washing
- 96 to 96 well dispensing ranging from 5 to 480 ul
The Labman Automation Second Generation Replicator
With the introduction of 384 MTP's came the demand for faster and more accurate systems. The Labman Automation second-generation replicator was installed at Glaxo Wellcome's brand new flagship research facility in Stevenage. Features include:
- A hotel-stacking unit for 200 daughter plates
- Barcode reading
- Inkjet printing
- Capacity for 6 new tip sets
- MTP lidding and de-lidding
- Capacity for 6 Mother deep well blocks
- Online tip washing
- 96 to 96 well dispensing ranging from 1 to 480 ul
- 96 to 384 well plate dispensing from 1 to 20 ul
- LIMS integration
The Labman Automation Third Generation Replicator
With all the major pharmaceutical companies building up large compound libraries came the demand for more copy plates for screening. In the late nineties GSK commissioned AEA Technologies to build an £8 million fully automated liquid store. One of the stipulations within this contract was that Labman Automation was to supply the Replicating Cells. The Labman cells were serviced by automated delivery units that loaded and unloaded Mother and Daughter plates to complete assay screen requests. Features of the replicator cells included:
- Open bed access for continuous mother and daughter plate loading
- Barcode tracking
- Online tip washing
- Online tip changing
- Online sample dilution
- Sub ul 96 to 96 dispensing
- Sub ul 384 to 384 dispensing
- Fully automated plate replication through LIMS