Exploring new treatment pathways in pediatric oncology

Scientists at the University Children’s Hospital Zurich are using the ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot from INTEGRA Biosciences to semi-automate and streamline their cell seeding tasks. These cells are used to understand pediatric cancer metabolism and support the development of novel chemotherapies for children and adolescents.

The University Children’s Hospital Zurich is the largest center for pediatrics and pediatric surgery in Switzerland, and one of the leading children’s hospitals worldwide. The oncology research group at the hospital studies pediatric cancer metabolism at a cellular and whole organism level, focusing on identifying mutation-induced metabolic vulnerabilities to target with novel treatment strategies for enhanced patient outcome and reduced genotoxicity.

The team has been using the ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot since 2022 for seeding cells extracted from the hospital’s clinical samples into 96 well plates. These cells are then used in drug screening, survival assays and live cell staining. Dr Raphael Morscher, head of the oncology research group, explained the rationale behind this recent acquisition: “In the past, we seeded cells entirely by hand, which led to manual errors and greatly limited the lab’s productivity and throughput. Semi-automation with the ASSIST PLUS from INTEGRA Biosciences has enabled us to increase throughput by up to 50 percent, as well as noticeably reducing the variability between samples and plates through consistent liquid dispensing, giving us more reliable and repeatable results. The ASSIST PLUS will help us to accelerate our crucial research into highly effective treatments for pediatric cancers in the coming years.”

Find out more about how the Morscher lab is using the ASSIST PLUS. 

About INTEGRA Biosciences

INTEGRA Biosciences is a leading provider of high-quality laboratory tools and consumables for liquid handling. The company is committed to creating innovative solutions which fulfil the needs of its customers in research, diagnostics and quality control within the life sciences markets and medical sector. INTEGRA’s engineering and production teams in Zizers, Switzerland and Hudson, NH, USA, strive to develop and manufacture instruments and consumables of outstanding quality. Today, INTEGRA’s innovative laboratory products are widely used all around the world where they help scientists accelerate scientific discovery. INTEGRA is an ISO 9001 certified company.

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