Webinars

The Echo^® 525 liquid handler is the newest acoustic liquid handler from Labcyte, enabling acoustic transfer for scientists who run assays from 100 nL to 10 µL. The Echo 525 system transfers biochemical and genomics reagents in 25 nanoliter increments in a non-contact manner--without tips, tubing, or nozzles. Dynamic Fluid Analysis™, a unique processing feature developed by Labcyte, ensures that scientists do not have to stop and calibrate their instruments before changing reagents or transfer volumes. This increases the flexibility to perform assay development and enables complete assembly of efficient microliter-scale assays. We will demonstrate a few ways in which the Echo 525 liquid handler can simplify processes in biochemical and genomic assay setup.

The high cost of drug discovery and the frequent failure of compounds due to poor ADMET (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion and Toxicity) properties necessitate an earlier study of ADMET profiles. Efficient early profile determination is an expensive process unless the process is miniaturized, and the cost per data point is reduced. The CYP450 inhibition assay is one of the most important ADMET assays which identifies drug candidates that may have undesirable drug-drug interactions or sub-optimal pharmacokinetic properties. Here, we present two miniaturized, simplified and automated methods using the Echo® liquid handler to evaluate CYP450 inhibition and time-dependent inhibition potential. When utilized in tandem with an integrated microplate reader or with RapidFire/MS, the new methods generate high quality IC50 data while reducing reagent costs by up to 90%.

Quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-qPCR) offers unmatched accuracy and quantification of gene expression. The Roche LightCycler 1536 offers a unique solution for preserving proven qPCR assay formats while significantly increasing throughput over 384-well instruments. While providing increased throughput, upstream workflows for generating template for qPCR assays through RNA isolation and subsequent cDNA synthesis can be the rate limiting step for high-throughput qPCR set up. Combining a one step RT-qPCR assay with a streamlined workflow for generation of template from cellular material, higher density 1536-well microplates bring high throughput analysis while employing fewer reagents. To successfully miniaturize RT-qPCR assay preparation for high-throughput workflows, a liquid handler must be able to dispense nL volumes with high precision and accuracy while avoiding cross contamination. The Echo liquid handler overcomes these challenges using tipless, touchless, acoustic transfer of reagents to deliver the precision and accuracy needed for high quality qPCR. The Access™ workstation combines the benefits of the Echo liquid handler and novel reagent chemistries with qPCR analysis into a single walk-away platform for high throughput qPCR. This session examines the ability to streamline qPCR assay preparation from generation of template to analysis utilizing the RealTime ready Cell Lysis Kit and LightCycler 1536 system from Roche on the Access workstation from Labcyte—increasing throughput and reducing overall reaction volumes to as little as 500 nL.

The diverse array of aqueous solutions inherent to protein crystallography screening presents a challenging venue for acoustic-based liquid transfer, but offers compelling advantages in ease of use, small crystallization volumes, and thereby significant protein reagent savings. I share our experiences with acoustic setup of successful crystallization trials using 10-30 nL protein per droplet (both advantages and limitations), technical advances in the Echo system that yield improved performance, and methods for implementing a rapid and streamlined nano-scale crystallization workflow.

The use of siRNA technology to probe the details of gene function in cells has proven to be a powerful research tool. Recently, siRNA technology has expanded into HTS applications such as the screening of whole genome siRNA libraries. There have been many technical difficulties adapting siRNA assays to HTS platforms and work continues in this area.

The HTS Center at Southern Research Institute has a long history and depth of experience with small molecule screening in a wide range of assay types. With this background we have established metrics on assay performance that are rigorous and produce excellent results for drug development. When we started to develop siRNA screening technology, we expected to achieve the same assay metrics.

Over the last year, a number of technical problems were identified and resolved in pursuit of this goal. As a result of this work, we now have siRNA assays with Z values of 0.7 and higher, CVs of less than 10% and a high degree of reproducibility using either Pearson's or Spearman's Correlations.

Many factors contribute to the production of high quality siRNA data including equipment selection and methodology. The technical aspects of how this was achieved will be discussed, including how some of the more challenging problems were addressed and why specific pieces of equipment were selected for each step in the process.

To meet the goals for low volume, assay-ready plate production at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, the decision was made to implement the Access workstation from Labcyte. The Access workstation is a compact automation platform that integrates the Echo® liquid handler with a sealer, centrifuge, bulk filler, and peeler. This presentation will highlight the reasons for purchasing the Access workstation, its implementation into the workflow of our laboratory, and the resulting improvements to our throughput and data quality.

Imagine preparing siRNA and compound screening, biochemical and cell-based assays, qPCR reactions and more all on your Labcyte® Echo® acoustic liquid handler!

We will introduce new capabilities for the Echo platform, including new consumables developments, that enable you to transfer a wide range of fluid types on a single instrument, with precision and accuracy comparable to the established performance with DMSO.

New fluid types include common biological buffers, surfactant, protein and nucleic acid solutions. This expanded flexibility enables complete assay miniaturization with better results, increased throughput and reduced costs for all your liquid handling applications.

Learn how you can bring the superior performance of acoustic droplet ejection technology to all your low-volume handling applications.

Labcyte® Echo® systems are the standard liquid handlers for compound transfers in screening laboratories worldwide.  To achieve the best performance and maximum productivity of the Echo system, Labcyte has created  application-based software, the POD™ (Plate-On-Demand) plate assembler and the Intellectual Scheduler.  
 
We present three innovative software applications for HTS that optimize the Echo system.  The unique power of acoustic droplet ejection provides more precise and accurate biological results.  The priority-based Intellectual Scheduler drives the coordination of each software application and all hardware devices in the POD assembler to achieve unmatched throughput and productivity.

Introducing an innovative method of creating IC50 curves using Echo liquid handlers