CRT automates Assay-Ready Microplate preparation

Cancer Research Technology (CRT), the development and commercialisation arm of Cancer Research UK, has implemented a Labcyte Access workstation to automate the production of assay-ready plates to be used in a high-throughput cell based screening program.

The workstation incorporates the Labcyte Echo® acoustic liquid transfer platform to enable walk-away production of low volume assay-ready plates. The leading driver behind CRT’s purchase of this system was said to be an overall reduction in compound consumption through screening compounds across more assays at a time.

“We already see the improved data quality for assays that have transitioned to the Access workstation,” says Fabrice Turlais, group leader HTS and compound management. “The improvements are seen in routine compound profiling assays as well as improve reproducibility in our cell-based HTS results. We can easily foresee the reduction in resource required for routine preparation of cell based IC50 assays and a significant improvement in the speed and flexibility of testing different concentrations for dose-response.”

“Echo liquid handlers have already had a significant impact on drug discovery efforts in the pharmaceutical industry,” says Mark Fischer-Colbrie, CEO and president of Labcyte. “Our technology is now poised to bring similar advances across a wide range of genomic and cell-based applications. We are pleased to see CRT immediately realise these benefits with their efforts in cancer research.”