Beckman Coulter Integrates New BioRAPTR™ Workstation for High-Throughput Assay Miniaturization

Beckman Coulter, Inc. will demonstrate its new BioRAPTR FRD™ microfluidic workstation at LabAutomation2007. The system will be shown in two configurations – standalone and integrated with Beckman Coulter’s new PARADIGM™ Detection Platform, Biomek^® NXp liquid handler and BRT Robotic Transport

With the addition of the new BioRAPTR low-volume workstation, Beckman Coulter’s automation capabilities span the complete range of volumes, from tubes to microplates to 3,456-well ChemLib* plates.

Ideal for assay miniaturization applications in drug discovery, genomics and proteomics, the BioRAPTR non-contact, high-precision dispenser delivers increased capacity and speed along with reduced reagent and consumable costs. With the BioRAPTR’s unique design, the plate moves while the pipetting head is stationary, creating a shorter fluid path, for high precision with low dead volume. Flexible programming is easily done through an Excel* spreadsheet and allows a variety of reagents to be dispensed into any well at a range of volumes. The BioRAPTR has been validated with biological samples, demonstrating high cell viability.

Integration of the BioRAPTR with Beckman Coulter’s Biomek and PARADIGM systems enables high-throughput applications such as compound screening. The company has also recently introduced a companion workstation, the PicoRAPTR™, a multimode workstation that features both piezo and syringe dispensing for low-volume aspirate and dispense operations involved in dose response curve generation and compound reformatting activities.

“This is the first time we have shown the BioRAPTR, developed by Aurora Discovery, as a Beckman Coulter product integrated with our other systems,” commented Noreen Galvin, Ph.D., director of automated solutions for Beckman Coulter. “We are currently working on additional integrations for high-throughput compound screening applications. The combination of high-quality, high-content data and reduced costs is driving rapid acceptance of this technology at pharmaceutical companies.”

*Excel is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.