Beckman Coulter Integrates Quanta™ SC MPL Flow Cytometer with Robotics for High-Throughput Cellular Analysis

Beckman Coulter, Inc. announces the successful integration of its Cell Lab Quanta SC MPL into a fully automated “seed and feed” cell culture system. The integrated system provides data and cellular growth parameters for the evaluation of clone selection, cell expansion and protein expression results. The Quanta SC MPL is integrated online with other peripheral devices and a robotic arm that moves cell culture plates to the flow cytometer for analysis. Data from the analysis is automatically captured by the Quanta SC MPL’s software for real-time and subsequent analysis and interpretation. The ability to integrate this advanced flow cytometer provides an expanded range of measurements for high-throughput, walkaway cell analyses, including such as cell count and viability, apoptosis, cell cycle and cell surface marker. The system, designed and customized by Beckman Coulter’s Integrated Solutions Group, delivers important measurement data for monitoring and process optimization in drug discovery and development applications.

The Quanta SC is an advanced and cost-effective flow cytometer for a wide variety of multicolor applications in life science, drug discovery and basic clinical research. It features three-color fluorescence, side scatter, electronic volume and absolute count measurements along with easy-to-use software, automated color compensation and multiple excitation wavelengths including UV. The Multi-Platform Loader (MPL) upgrade option provides additional flexibility, enabling the handling of samples in both plates and tubes and sample preparation prior to acquisition. The Quanta SC MPL can analyze a sample in as little as 30 seconds, in ANSI/SBS labware formats including 24-, 96- or 384-well cell culture plates. An optional software package supports 21 CFR part 11 compliance with features such as administrator-defined user access and data file audit trails.

“Pharmaceutical cell culture systems are complex and generally operate at high throughput levels. Walkaway integration of all devices is ideal in these applications. The integrated Quanta SC MPL adds to Beckman Coulter’s growing cell culture and process development offering, which includes automated cell viability analysis with the Vi-CELL^® XR instrument,” explained Karen Bezold, director of research flow cytometry and business development for Beckman Coulter.

“Flow cytometry is a powerful cellular analysis tool,” commented Bob Lund, group manager of Integrated Solutions for Beckman Coulter. “With the use of robotics to deliver plates to the Quanta SC MPL, automated cell culture systems can fully incorporate the cytometer’s speed and range of measurement parameters.”