Labcyte Awarded 28th U. S. Patent Describing Improved HTS Microplates for Low Volume Acoustic Transfer

Labcyte Inc. announces the issuance of U.S. Patent 7,185, 969 describing microplates used in high-throughput screening that have low electrical resistance. These plates are more easily electrically grounded than traditional plastic microplates and are more easily de-ionized.

“The trajectory of small droplets can be influenced by electric charges and fields,” said Chief Technical Officer, Richard Ellson. “We deionize both source plates and destinations in our current instruments, the Portrait™ 630 reagent multi-spotter, the Echo^® 550 and Echo 555 liquid handlers to reduce this effect. These advances in microplates will reduce the time required for deionization and improve the productivity of the process.”

“The Labcyte acoustic droplet ejection (ADE) technology used in our award-winning Echo^® Series 500 liquid handlers has quickly become the state-of-the-art in sample transfer in high-throughput screening laboratories in the pharmaceutical industry. The technology described in this patent will allow us to increase throughput while expanding the range of available applications. This invention will also facilitate the placement of arrays onto the bottom of individual wells in multi-well systems. In this case, it is not sufficient to ensure that the compound was simply transferred to a well but that it was transferred to a particular location in the well with no overlap with other compounds transferred. Even a slight charge could force droplets to change trajectory and position of or even move after they land.

These microplates will aid in miniaturization and enable our users to take further advantage of the small drops produced by our acoustic drop ejection technology.

Labcyte Inc., headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, is the world leader in providing acoustic droplet ejection technology for pharmaceutical and life science applications. The award-winning Echo 500 series liquid handlers and Portrait 630 reagent multi-spotters are used in seven of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies, as well as in leading academic and research institutions and contract research organizations worldwide. The Labcyte acoustic droplet ejection technology has broad applications including compound management, assays, arraying, particle manufacturing, imaging mass spectrometry, and live-cell transfer. Labcyte also provides a range of unique microplate consumables. Labcyte has 28 issued U.S. patents, 3 issued European patents and additional international filings.