Molecular Devices Introduces Next Generation of QPix Microbial Colony Pickers

Molecular Devices has announced today the launch of the QPix 400 series, the next generation of microbial colony pickers. The new systems offer unmatched performance and productivity enabling scientists to manage large, diverse populations, including 98% efficiency in colony picking, far surpassing the industry standard.

The QPix 400 series, which includes the QPix 450 and QPix 460, with a third system, the QPix 400, to follow later in 2012, features the unique option to simultaneously detect colonies and quantify fluorescent markers. This pre-screening step enables the colonies of interest to be objectively identified and selected. Together with highly accurate robotics and organism-specific colony picking pins, scientists can ensure that the right colony is picked every time, thus eliminating unnecessary work and expense downstream. An agar height sensor further increases accuracy at the picking stage.

Application-driven software includes tools to easily track sample histories throughout a workflow. Applications include areas such as protein expression, biofuel research, enzyme evolution, phage display, DNA sequencing and library generation and management.

The QPix 460 is the most advanced system of the QPix 400 range, offering automation of the entire workflow from sampling and spreading onto bioassay plates, through to imaging, analysis and picking, transferring selected colonies to up to 140 destination plates in 2 stacker lanes, thereby shortening timelines and increasing overall lab productivity. QPix 450 is automated from imaging to picking, transferring to up to 210 destination plates in 3 stacker lanes.

Dr. Mark Truesdale, Marketing Manager, Molecular Devices, commented: “The number of projects and applications that involve colony picking has expanded rapidly since the launch of the QPix systems by Genetix (now part of Molecular Devices). The original systems gained their market leading reputation following selection by sequencing centers involved in the Human Genome Project. These new systems have been developed from the original QPix robotics, but with significant enhancements in performance and features, particularly in software and imaging, to support a wider variety of applications. Users can now choose the system best suited to their application and workload demands.”