Technology - Screening Facility > Liquid Handling

Matrix WellMate
Bio-Tek μFill
Bio-Tek Precision 2000
Velocity11 Bravo
Velocity11 VPrep
CyBio CyBi-Well vario
Thermo Multidrop Combi nL

The screening facility has three levels of liquid handling robots, varying in speed and accuracy. The levels are as follows: high speed and lower accuracy; medium speed and medium accuracy; lower speed and high accuracy. All equipment can be used to rapidly fill both 96- and 384- well assay plates with protein solutions or cells.

Matrix WellMate

The screening facility currently has four general use Matrix WellMates used for 96 or 384-well shallow deep well plates. These plate fillers are high-speed liquid dispensing units, all four of the units are integrated with matrix stacker units to enable users to stack up to 30 plates for filling, the stacker units also open to the front so plates can be loaded in easily while remaining in the sterile environment of the hood. The filler utilizes an 8-channel cartridge, with each nozzle being fed by a separate tube and driven by a peristaltic pump. The entire tubing assembly is removable and can be autoclaved or replaced as needed in cases where sterility during dispensing is essential. It can be programmed to fill specific plate columns as desired by the user, and is capable of dispensing 2.0 to 2000 µL in increments of 1 µL. The priming volume for these liquid handlers is about 6-10mL. In addition, between each Microplate that is filled there is a 0.1mL of reagent that is an automatic prime and cannot be recovered.

Click here for a helpful PDF on WellMate usage guidelines and tips.

For ordering information about tubing cartridges, see the Screening Supplies page.

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The Screening Facility has two µFills (MicroFills) from Bio-Tek Instruments. The µFill is a single-position rapid-dispense plate filler with a volume range of 5uL to 1500uL for 384-well plates and 10-3000uL for 96-well plates. The instrument can process 96 or 384 shallow and deep-well plates, and its 16-channel manifold can fill either in about four or twelve seconds respectively. The priming volume for these liquid handlers is about 13-20mL.

Currently, the Screening Facility has both of the µFills integrated with Bio-Tek Bio-Stacks. The entire pump assembly can be removed and autoclaved for sterile liquid-handling. Pump assembly ordering information can be found on the Screening Supplies page.

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The screening facility has two Bio-Tek Precision 2000 robots, (medium speed, medium accuracy) liquid handling devices. They are highly versatile devices equipped with an eight-channel dispense manifold and an eight-channel pipette head. The instruments support a wide variety of fluid transfer operations for both 96 or 384 well microplates including reagent addition, continuous reagent dispensing, sample transfer, plate replication, serial dilutions, and mixing within a well. The robots can accurately pipette volumes between 5 and 120 ul. Using the dispense-only manifold, the minimum volume transferred is 15 ul. The priming volume when using the dispense manifold is about 20mL. When using the pipettor an additional 2mL's is required to cover the bottom of the reservoir.

If you use this robot frequently, you can purchase your own 8-channel dispense manifold as well as tips that are compatible with the instrument. The ordering information can be found on the Screening Supplies page.

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Velocity11 Bravo

The Velocity11 Bravo is a versatile liquid handler enclosed in the ICCBL BioprotectII hood. This instrument has an open air flow design and has both 96 and 384 channel disposable tip pipette heads. It is capable of accurately pipetting from 0.5 to 200uL. It is primarily used for siRNA liquid handling, including both screening and library reformatting.

Velocity11 Vprep

The Velocity11 VPrep is a precision pipettor system that features interchangeable heads. ICCBL owns both 96 and 384 disposable pipette heads, with volume ranges from 0.5 to 200uL. This liquid handler features eight moveable shelves, two of which are for disposable tip boxes (blue boxes pictured above). The ICCBL primarily uses this system for small molecule reformatting.

The CyBio CyBi-Well vario system is a high accuracy liquid handling device, with additional pin-transfer capabilities (click here for pin-transfer details). The CyBi-Well vario employs an interchangeable 96 and 384-channel pipette head that can accurately handle volumes between 1 and 225 ul using disposable pipette tips. The CyBi-Well vario is equipped with two stacker systems that allow for unattended use. For liquid handling, the pipettor requires an additional volume to cover the bottom of the reservoir, this can be as low as 5mL depending on the liquid reservoir being used.

For information on ordering disposable pipette tips for the CyBio, see the Screening Supplies page.

Thermo Multidrop Combi nL

The Multidrop Combi nL is a bulk reagent dispenser (plate filler) capable of filling 96, 384, and 1536-well microplates.  It has a volume range of 50nL to 50uL and has a very low priming volume compared with our other dispensers, in the range of 1-3mL.  It also has the ability to dispense any volume (in its range) to any well of a plate using the attached computer – no row or column restrictions.  Because the fluidics are so fine, it is prone to clogging and there is a strict cleaning protocol that must be adhered to both before and after use.  The Combi nL uses a pressurized reagent bottle, tubing, and valve assembly to dispense, (no cartridges) which cannot be removed and autoclaved – ethanol cleaning is the only method for “sterilization”.  The attached stacker allows multiple microplates to be filled in one session.  It is located on the bench top near the screening room office. 

Best for:

• Non-sterile low volume dispensing
• Low priming volume needs
• 1536-well plate applications

Not good for

• Cells or aggregates which are large or “clump”
• Applications where sterility is critical and no antibiotics can be used (e.g. Penn/Strep)

Click here to be redirected to the Combi nL on the Thermo website
Click here for a PDF description of the Combi nL
Click here for application notes from the Thermo website
Click here for information on the RapidStak Stacker

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