International Standards Group Issues Call for Liquid Handling Experts

Artel, the leader in liquid handling quality assurance, will host the September technical meeting of the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee 48 Working Group 4, which is developing standards for micropipettes, precision laboratory syringes and automated liquid handlers. The group is calling for experts and all relevant stakeholders who are interested in joining and participating in the meeting.

“This working group provides an excellent opportunity to network with experts in the field from across the globe,” said George Rodrigues, Ph.D., senior scientific manager at Artel and convener of the working group. “We generally have good representation from manufacturers but are always looking for laboratory users. This is a chance for people to influence the development of important standards that will be applicable to their work and adopted globally.”

Interested experts should contact either Rodrigues, grodrigues@artel-usa.com, or Dr. Renata Koerfer, secretary of ISO TC 48, at din@dechema.de. “The processes for joining an ISO working group differ by country and we can provide interested experts with guidance on how to go about it,” said Rodrigues. “All persons who join the working group will receive a meeting invitation and instructions for registering.”

The Artel-hosted working group meeting will be held September 9, 10 and 11, 2015 in Portland, Maine. The last meeting was held in March 2015 in Lisbon, Portugal and the first took place in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2014. The September meeting will focus on completing revisions to ISO 8655 for micropipettes, which will include the addition of new sections for electronic, motorized pipettes. Planning will also begin on calibration standards for precision laboratory syringes, and recommendations will be reviewed for standardization of volumetric performance of automated liquid handling systems. The deadline for early registration at a reduced fee is July 24, 2015.