Bio-Rad’s New CFX Automation System Enables Walk-Away, High-Throughput Real-Time PCR

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. today announced the availability of the CFX automation system for walk-away, high-throughput qPCR on its CFX96™ and CFX384™ real-time PCR detection systems.

In the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical markets, performance, time-to-result, and sample throughput are increasingly important. The addition of the CFX automation system to the CFX96 and CFX384 real-time PCR systems offers a high quality, high-throughput, automated PCR solution for these researchers.

“The time needed to run multiple PCR plates is one of the major bottlenecks in generating real-time PCR data,” said Richard Kurtz, Marketing Manager, Amplification, Bio Rad Laboratories. “The CFX automation platform eliminates the need for a researcher to be present to load the PCR plate and start each run individually. Now all they need to do is load the stacker, setup the runs, and walk away.”

The CFX automation system is equipped with a benchtop plate handler with the capacity to load up to twenty 384-well plates or 7,680 samples at a time on the CFX384 system, facilitating workflow automation, generation of large volumes of data, and rapid analysis of that data.

CFX automation control software manages the configuration and operation of the CFX automation system with one CFX96 or CFX384 real-time PCR detection system, ensuring maximum productivity. Researchers can use the CFX automation control software to define PCR protocols for multiple experiments at once, enabling either the same protocol to be applied across each plate or different protocols for each plate.

Upon run completion, users can analyze data when and where they want by choosing to be sent an email notification with an attached data file. They can also request an automatically generated PDF report in addition to the data file. For more information please visit www.bio rad.com/amplification/.

About the CFX96 and CFX384 Systems
Using the Bio-Rad C1000™ thermal cycler chassis as the base thermal cycler instrument, the CFX96 and CFX384 real-time PCR detection systems incorporate innovative optical technologies and software to deliver sensitive, reliable detection for real-time PCR applications, including absolute quantitation, genetic variation analysis, and gene expression. Both systems read each well individually with high sensitivity and no cross talk to deliver optimal quantitative results.

The CFX96 and CFX384 systems provide excellent performance in uniformity, dynamic range of detection and multiplexing capabilities, and they can be operated in several control configurations, including a stand-alone mode with no computer attached. With the CFX384 system, researchers have access to high-throughput real-time PCR in a 384-well format without having to sacrifice convenience and flexibility.