High-Throughput Screening and Selection of High Lipid Producers for Biofuels

Biodiesel production from lipid producing microbial systems is receiving strong interest for their ability to generate sustainable, high-quality fuels. Screening of thousands or even millions of microbial clones is required to find the best lipid producers for further development. In this poster, Rhodococcus opacus was cultured on an agar plate containing Nile Red, a lipophilic fluorescent dye. A QPix 420 automated colony picker was used to select and pick high quality lipid producing R. opacus colonies and the lipid content was measured using a SpectraMax M5 Multi-Mode Microplate Reader.