9 LIMS & Lab Automation
Pipetting Robot Provides Walkaway Automation of PCR-based HPV Screening Workfl ows
Automated Isolation Technology Speeds up Pharmacy Process
Clean air and containment specialist Envair has announced a new partnership with Dutch engineering firm SmartCompounders. The collaboration means Envair will be the only isolator manufacturer in the UK to offer this innovative solution to personalised medication.
Combining the SmartCompounders Chemo automated solution with the Envair CDC F negative pressure isolator can help pharmacy managers quickly and easily increase output per compounding technician to 20-40 final product containers per hour (IV bags, syringes or elastomeric pumps), improving efficiency and reducing medication errors.
Commenting on the partnership, Envair Managing Direct Gary Bagshaw said: “With so many clients demanding efficient ways to deliver personalised medicine, we believe the SmartCompounders Chemo integration, which can also connect to prescribing software, is a giant leap forward for hospital pharmacies.”
Labs are increasingly choosing Integra Biosciences’ liquid handling instruments to help them address growing workloads associated with Human papilloma virus (HPV) screening. Several studies have recently suggested that PCR-based screening is more accurate and offers earlier detection of pre- cancerous growths than the conventional Papanicolaou (Pap) test and liquid-based cytology, leading to a gradual shift towards molecular diagnostics approaches.
The ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot is ideally suited to this type of diagnostic screening workflow, offering fast and easy, walkaway automation of protocols. The Centre de Pathologie du Maine Normandie (CPMN) in Le Mans was the first lab in France to install an ASSIST PLUS to process HPV samples, and this system has now been adopted by several labs nationally. Nucleic acid extraction and PCR set-up are combined into a single program on the ASSIST PLUS, significantly simplifying the workflow and ensuring superior reproducibility with error-free pipetting. Dr Quentin Breton, a pathologist at CPMN, commented: “We chose the ASSIST PLUS because we wanted a solution that would allow us to automate the protocol for HPV testing as much as possible, while maintaining strict quality requirements and avoiding pipetting errors. It has now become an integral part of management of our HPV samples, and we have ideas on how to implement it for several other molecular biology workflows.”
CPMN’s ASSIST PLUS is equipped with a VOYAGER adjustable tip spacing pipette, which is used to transfer samples and mastermix from tubes to PCR plate. Maria Falco, Laboratory Technician at CPMN explained: “We use many different labware formats, and precisely and accurately transferring between them is complicated and time consuming to perform manually. Thankfully, the VOYAGER, in combination with the ASISST PLUS, processes these automatically and simultaneously, allowing us to achieve very accurate and reproducible results, and streamlining the entire workflow.”
More information online:
ilmt.co/PL/46EB 54379pr@reply-direct.com
Founder and CEO of SmartCompounders, Sander van Vreeland, added: “With their established relationships with hospitals throughout the UK, we are delighted to be able to add our solution to Envair’s portfolio, helping to drive efficiency and improve accuracy in pharmacies and compounding centres.”
More information online:
www.envair.co.uk 54429pr@reply-direct.com
New Kit Revolutionises Pancreatic Elastase Testing
Faecal pancreatic elastase testing can now be automated, providing fl exible and random access application on most clinical chemistry platforms. The new fPELA® turbo from Bühlmann is ideal for use in laboratory environments for identifi cation and monitoring of pancreatic insuffi ciency in patients. There is the added advantage that it utilises the same CALEX extraction device as the fCAL turbo assay, so it is possible to run both tests from a single extract.
Available from Alpha Laboratories, the fPELA technology is a milestone in automation of pancreatic elastase quantifi cation. It reduces the hands-on time dramatically and allows reporting of pancreatic elastase results from human stool samples within the shortest time. Time to fi rst result is just 10 minutes with further results following every few seconds thereafter, making it one of the fastest faecal elastase assays available.
More information online:
ilmt.co/PL/Zpel 54487pr@reply-direct.com
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