Greiner Bio-One presents the unique cell culture AutoFlask™ de-signed solely for automated tissue culture

An innovative cell culture flask for automated cell culture systems will be presented by Greiner Bio-One at the upcoming Analytica from 25th to 28th April 2006 in Munich.

Developed by Greiner Bio-One, the leading international technology partner to the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industry, and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), a leading innovator and producer of high-throughput automated research systems.

Especially developed for automated cell culture systems, the entry route of the AutoFlask™ does not consist of removable lids or screw caps, which pose reliability, speed and automation problems, but instead the AutoFlask™ relies solely on a robot accessible entry septum. This multiple entry septum is pre-scored to both prevent coring by pipette tips and ensure sterility of the flask contents throughout solution exchanges. “Since optimizing a tissue culture flask for both manual operations as well as automated liquid handling inevitably leads to compromised solutions, we chose to focus on automated handling for this flask to meet our reliability and speed requirements” commented Jim Chang, GNF lead engineer for the flask.

The external dimensions of the new automation friendly cell culture flask comply with ANSI Standards, rendering it suitable for use on a wide range of cell culture and liquid handlingsystems. With a novel design to enable smooth handling during cell seeding, cultivation and subsequent analysis, the AutoFlask™ features an integrated hydrophobic filter membrane to permit unimpeded gas exchange while cultivating cells. The flask also contains a unique centrifugation pocket that enables separation of cells from supernatant while maintaining the integrity of soft pellets.

“In developing our new Compound Profiling System, which automates the entire process of screening collections of compounds against libraries of cell-based assays, we needed to develop an automated tissue culture flask that was more amenable to large scale, reliable, automated tissue culture than anything else available,” commented Daniel Sipes, GNF Director of Advanced Automation Technologies. Lara Marchetti, Greiner Product Manager for tissue culture products, added “it was a pleasure to collaborate with GNF on designing and then producing this flask, we believe it is a truly innovative tissue culture flask that advances the field of automated tissue culture to the next level.”