“STAR 4 Chips”: Your complete solution for all your microarray applications

Whether you are using Affymetrix^® GeneChips^®, Illumina^® BeadChips or Agilent^® Microarrays to make your next discovery: You have to invest a lot in sample preparation for your expression studies, instead of having the time to focus on your results. This procedure is also very error-prone, due to the large number of steps involved. As a solution to this problem, HAMILTON now offers an automated system based on their Microlab STAR.

Together with our partners Nestlé Research Center (NRC) and Agendia, Hamilton have developed a complete solution for this kind of sample preparation starting from tissue (as an alternative protocols are available for cells, yeast or bacteria) and ending with labelled cRNA targets ready for hybridisation. All additional equipment, like Thermocycler and Microplate Reader is fully integrated by an internal robotic hand called iSWAP. The complete protocol is divided into three methods (see Fig.): Excel worklists with samples to process are created in the beginning of method 1 and can be reused for running later methods. After total RNA normalization in method 1 and cRNA normalization in method 3, a microtiter plate with small aliquots of the samples is prepared by the system to be used in offline quality analysis (e.g. on a Bioanalyzer).

The STAR system provides you with:

• Automated hands-free processing starting from tissue samples and ending with labelled cRNA samples ready for hybridisation
• All master mixes (e.g. first- and second-strand cDNA synthesis) are prepared automatically by the robot
• A compact system due to the complete integration of third party equipment with the built-in robotic plate handler iSWAP
• Dividing the complete process into three methods results in maximum flexibility regarding sample processing
• Flexible system allows automation of other applications on the same platform