Melbourne-based Genera Biosystems has been testing a HydroSpeed™ plate washer with its Sirocco™ multiplexed diagnostics automation platform, allowing rapid, efficient washing of its proprietary AmpaSand™ beads.

Karl Poetter, Chief Scientific Officer, explained: "Following PCR, AmpaSand plates are spun down to remove the supernatant, then washed to remove unbound reagents or PCR products prior to flow cytometry analysis. Manual bead washing is tedious and error-prone, and so we wanted to automate the post-PCR washing steps to provide the accuracy and reliability necessary for diagnostic applications. We needed an automated 96-channel plate washer that offered effective removal of unincorporated primers and reagents without disturbing the pellet, and the HydroSpeed washer from Tecan was the only system that met our specifications. It offers precise control over the wash parameters and needle positioning, allowing us to obtain very high bead retention rates and ensuring effective washing."
 
“We have successfully evaluated the HydroSpeed washer for integration with our Sirocco Automation System, and our aim now is to create a streamlined, compact and user-friendly platform that offers walkaway automation of the entire process, simply requiring the patient sample to be loaded onto the instrument. The Tecan team has always been positive and supportive of our automation efforts, and we are confident that their expertise will help us to develop this next generation of our automated system."

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