May 2004
New Bench-Top Workstation for Assay Automation
Compactness, precision, reproducibility and flexibility set HAMILTON's new STARlet bench-top liquid handling workstation apart. The STARlet reliably and efficiently processes critical assays in cellomics, genomics, proteomics, drug discovery and diagnostics applications. At the same time, it fits on every lab bench, even if space is tight. In the past, primarily large laboratories in pharmaceutical companies and diagnostic facilities could afford to automate their assays. Thousands of samples were processed by large and costly systems. Recently, biotech start-ups, academia, government-funded institutions, veterinary and forensic labs have started up automation projects too. While they do not need the high throughput of larger labs, they expect systems with high precision, reproducibility and flexibility but with a small footprint and at an affordable price. The new STARlet was developed with these requirements in mind. It uses the innovative "air-displacement" pipetting technology that works without system liquids and tubing, which are often prone to contamination. In combination with disposable tips, the STARlet keeps the risk of contamination to a minimum. Another benefit of this technology is the pressure monitoring system in the pipetting channel. It can detect problems during aspiration caused by insufficient reagent volume or by particles blocking the pipette tip. Another important component of the pipetting system is the patented CO-RE technology that accuratly connects tips or steel needles to the pipetting channels. CO-RE allows the use of tips and needles within the same run. Instead of tips, the CO-RE grip tool can also be picked up by two channels during a run. With this tool, the channels can transfer plates on the deck, i.e. onto a magnetic bead separator, without a costly robotic hand. CO-RE technology also translates the exceptionally high positional accuracy right into the pipette tip, allowing reliable processing of even 1536-well plates. Its innovative technology makes the STARlet suitable for a variety of applications such as MALDI target spotting, protein crystallization and hit picking. Typical applications such as PCR setup and genomic DNA purification have already been validated on the STARlet. Many more will follow.