Integrated microplate handling and single cell analysis capabilities
Sphere Fluidics, a company commercializing single cell analysis systems with its patented picodroplet technology, and Peak Analysis and Automation (PAA), a supplier of intelligent laboratory automation solutions, announced the optimization of the Cyto-Mine Single Cell Analysis System through integration with PAA’s automated plate handler, S-LAB. The addition of S-LAB to the Cyto-Mine provides researchers with a further streamlined solution for single cell analysis in biopharmaceutical workflows.
Combining automated microplate handling with the Cyto-Mine offers a simple solution to minimize hands-on involvement and reduce timelines in antibody discovery and cell line development. By replacing manual barcode scanning of multi-well microtiter plates and plate loading in the final picodroplet dispensing phase of the Cyto-Mine, the integration of S-LAB increases user flexibility, overall throughput and efficiency. The integrated system combines single cell screening, sorting, imaging, isolation and clone verification, and can process up to 40 million heterogenous mammalian cells in a few hours. It has a small footprint to enable use in a cell culture hood, which, coupled with the de-lidding capability of S-LAB, ensures that the processed cells remain sterile.
The launch follows the announcement of Sphere Fluidics and PAA’s collaboration in January 2019, and consolidates 10 months of research optimizing the communication between both devices. PAA has utilized the flexible application programming interface (API) of the Cyto-Mine Studio Software Suite to communicate easily with S-LAB across a range of analytical cellular procedures.