The Regional Molecular Genetics Service (RMGS) at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, is using a Freedom EVO^® liquid handling workstation in combination with chemagen's proven nucleic isolation technology to perform fully automated DNA extraction. Supplied by chemagen's UK distributor, Auto Q Biosciences, this integrated system is housed within a Class 1 biological safety cabinet and provides walkaway processing of up to 24 samples in a single run. Kudrat Rahman, Business Development Director at Auto Q Biosciences, explained why the Company chose to work with Tecan: "The RMGS required a robust solution capable of fully automating its DNA extraction process. Although several other manufacturers were able to provide this, the RMGS needed a very reliable system capable of performing the extraction with minimal alteration to its existing protocols. We were aware that Tecan workstations had already been successfully combined with chemagic instruments at other sites across Europe, and Tecan's open software architecture and excellent reputation for reliability made the Freedom EVO an obvious choice." 

Stuart Bayliss, RMGS Project Manager, added: "The system runs for eight hours a day, five days a week, and is proving to be very reliable. It has certainly exceeded our expectations in terms of efficiency, and is a significant step forward from our previous method. We are currently processing approximately 6,000 whole blood samples a year using the platform, and are now looking into automation of DNA extraction processes for saliva and cell culture samples to further increase our productivity."