A RoboLector upgrade made by customer
Preculture module developed together with Professor Kampeis
Together with Professor Kampeis from the Institute for Biotechnical Process Design (IBioPD) of the Trier University of Applied Sciences, we jointly developed and integrated a preculture module into the RoboLector system.
Shortly after Professor Kampeis’ RoboLector had been installed in the institute’s lab, he had the idea for a magnetic stirrer device. The idea was based on the observation that microorganism cells, e.g. yeasts, sediment very quickly in not-stirred devices that are used as standard in the RoboLector. A stirred device however, would prevent the sedimentation of the cells. In this way, it would allow representative pipetting and homogenous transfers of biomass from the RoboLector worktable into the microtiter plate wells of the BioLector, e.g. for inoculation. Professor Kampeis provided us with a design proposal and we integrated the final module into the RoboLector platform. The stirrer has the SBS footprint and can, therefore, be placed in any of the available worktable positions. It can be effortlessly integrated into RoboLector worktable layouts and can be used both for media preparations as well as within the versatile trigger functionality of the RoboLector Agent.
The main advantage of this module is that the stirrer bar is placed between vortex breakers to improve the mixing as well as the precise pipetting despite the moving liquid. Additionally, the disposable cups are autoclavable. The new magnetic stirrer enables e.g. a fast and reliable, automated inoculation of the entire MTP from one continuously stirred stock solution. Professor Kampeis said in relation to this upgrade: “Now we are able to perform 48 parallelized fermentations starting with the same biomass concentration which originates from one preculture”. The data received from experiments prove the concept, it is possible to take out pipetting liquid from a stirred solution.
The magnetic stirrer is now available as an optional module.