Time-Saving Automation for Small Biobanks

Ziath reports strong uptake of its Mohawk semi-automated tube picker in smaller biobanks and biorepositories.

Small biobanks and biorepositories need to select tubes from cold racks straight from the freezer, but cannot afford the huge investment in robotics to fully automatically pick and place tubes from racks. The Mohawk, being small and compact, can simplify picking tubes, up to 16 in one go, from a 96-position tube rack. By elevating sample tubes in racks using solenoids, the Mohawk enables biobank operators to quickly and simply retrieve the correct tubes and put in the destination racks. Additionally, because the Mohawk can seamlessly connect with Ziath rack scanners, biobank users can read in a picking list, select the tubes and verify that the correct tubes are picked. This makes the whole process of finding and selecting the right tubes in your biobank quicker and easier without complexity and cost of full automation.

The Mohawk is a widely proven system for frozen or thawed sample tube picking from 96-position racks. Designed to work out of the box, the Mohawk needs no set up or calibration. Instrument control is through powerful software which provides an intuitive interface for even occasional users. Tubes can be picked from a single rack or a picklist can be set up to select tubes across multiple racks. Pick list operations are normally started from reading the 1D code on a rack placed onto the Mohawk, but manual selection is also possible.

Other key features of the Mohawk semi-automated tube picker include the ability to generate picklists externally in other software applications, or create a template using the Mohawk’s own software. For extra sample tracking and security, the Mohawk can be connected directly to a 2D-barcode scanner for tube confirmation. In this mode it can also generate picklists directly from the tube barcodes. For further traceability, a 1D-scanner for reading the rack barcode is included as standard.

The compact size, intuitive software and ability to integrate make the Mohawk a valuable asset for smaller biobanks and biorepositories to reliably and quickly pick and handle thawed or frozen tubes in SLAS standard format racks.

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