Automated Liquid Handlers are Not Commodity Products
Automated liquid handlers are a great way to remove manual performance variability from a workflow while adding valuable time back on your clock. And if you’re familiar with different manufacturers in the liquid handling space, you likely understand that robotic liquid handlers are not all created equally.
Functional differences among different automated liquid handlers means that the one in your lab may not match your performance expectations or help you to reach your next scientific breakthrough.
For example, imagine that you’ve been asked to ramp up production from five well plates per day to 500. Using an automated liquid handler that is throughput-limited by its deck size and manual handoffs, you might be tempted to hit the proverbial panic button.
On the other hand, you could easily expand production to meet the requested throughput with something far more innovative than a standalone and deck-limiting automated liquid handler.
Prime is Different
The Prime automated liquid handler from HighRes Biosolutions is a far more innovative solution to help meet demands like increased production. This design-forward, vertically integrated powerhouse can rise to any occasion and is trusted by industry leaders across the globe.
In fact, Prime redefines liquid handling by offering a fully integrated, collaborative approach to automated liquid handling and to laboratory automation itself.
Prime’s distinct competitive edge shines through its vertical and modular design. This includes advanced robotics, interactive work surfaces, optimized labware management, and a dynamic pipetting range.
Packed with highly capable features, Prime delivers precisely dispensed liquids into microplates with densities as high as 1536 wells. With top-notch versatility, Prime offers the same performance when using tubes and other labware. This makes Prime an essential automated laboratory tool regardless of your scientific application.
Prime can help to drive your next scientific discovery and guard the bottom line. What’s more, when pressure’s on to ramp up production or expand an assay range, you can completely rely on Prime.
Read on to learn about Prime’s high-performance features and next-generation modular laboratory automation hardware.
Unpacking the Many Prime Differences
Prime consists of a liquid handler, labware management carousel, and collaborative robotic arm all rolled into one convenient package. This unique blend of functionality means that Prime is ready for any workflow the moment it enters the lab. As you develop workflow complexity or even evolve scientific direction, Prime keeps the pace as either a standalone or fully integrated enterprise-level automated system.
Robust hardware and software combine with a user-friendly graphic interface for ease of use. At the same time, walkaway operation allows users to focus on high-value tasks like data interpretation while the instrument manages low value tasks like pipetting and more. This reallocation of labor hours means that labs can operate more efficiently as labor is one of the largest expenditures in a laboratory budget.
In the automated Prime workflow, tasks are performed exactly the same way for each sample and each run. In this manner, variability and error are significantly reduced, and the need to repeat assays is likewise reduced. With less time spent compensating for errors and variability, labs using Prime can use that valuable time to ramp up production to meet goals.
Assays can also be miniaturized into higher-density microplates to reduce the amount of sample and reagents used. With these benefits at hand, material use is decreased, resulting in significant cost savings over time.
A Prime Difference: Production-Grade Multi-tasking and Efficiency
Reliable accuracy and precision lead Prime’s key features and are essential to ensure optimal production levels.
With its ability to change pipetting heads on-the-fly and dispense liquids in volumes as low as 0.5 µL with a coefficient of variation (CV) of less than 5%, Prime is all about precision. However, it doesn’t stop there.
Prime excels at multi-tasking. This workhorse liquid handler actively holds sample plates with a high degree of positional certainty. This is the highest alignment accuracy for pipetting of any automated liquid handler on the market.
In fact, Prime is unrivaled in its ability to accurately and repeatably pipette into 1536 well-plates without the fear of crushing tips or the need to reteach positioning. Prime stands up to the most demanding needs of throughput screening and production.
Because Prime is a champ when it comes to multi-tasking, it can run all day, every day with no more than minimal human interaction.
Prime sets your workflows to offer the highest walk-away time in the industry.
For example, it can continuously replenish labware as needed, even while the pipetting robot dispenses liquid or swaps pipette heads. This further minimizes unproductive downtime in the lab. Think of the expanded innovation opportunities with Prime in your corner!
The speed of other automated liquid handlers may be limited by the time it takes to load and unload samples and labware and then transfer liquids. This pain point does not exist in the Prime liquid handling universe.
With Prime, labware is stored and managed from the high-capacity under-deck carousel. Users may opt to employ the barcode scanning feature to heighten efficiency.
On-deck dynamic trays move labware and transfer liquids all at the same time. Meanwhile, Prime’s pipetting heads automatically change on-the-fly to ensure that the right volume is dispensed at the right time at the right plate sample density.
Sample limiting batch processing is replaced by rapid continuous sample processing. Further enhancing the speed of science, integrated robotic arms move samples to and from the liquid handler to keep your workflow progressing. The arms are then tucked away when not in use.
All of this makes Prime far more efficient and convenient than other automated liquid handlers.
A Prime Difference: Modularity and Scalability
A major part of Prime’s power is that it is modular and scalable in terms of hardware and software—making it an all-in-one machine. Already equipped with storage and a robotic arm, it’s ready to serve as a standalone tool, right out of the box.
Because the system is modular, you are free to configure it to meet your lab’s specific needs in the right way at the right time. Start small and scale as needed. Then, invest in automation at a pace that makes sense for your organization and budget.
By purchasing only the components your lab needs at a given time, Prime can evolve into your fully personalized solution. In contrast, a one-size-fits-all solution may not have the capabilities that your lab needs down the road.
Hardware modularity includes adding new pipetting heads as well as seamlessly integrating task-driven lab equipment from HighRes or other manufacturers. Prime can also be quickly inserted into a larger automated workflow. It’s designed to be easy to expand on an as-needed basis.
The software offers modularity as well. Prime is driven by Solution® software. When scaling plate processing from one plate at a time to full, streaming production runs, Solution software can interact with Cellario™ whole lab automation software to simplify the entire process and keep your lab running at full steam ahead.
This extensive modularity helps you tailor Prime to your lab’s needs, reduce manual errors, and free up your staff to focus on higher value tasks. All of this means that goals such as increased production are within easy reach. Prime has huge production power, yet it saves space, fitting next to your lab bench rather than dominating it.
The Prime Difference: Ease of Use
While Prime is built to perform powerful science, you don’t need to be a computer scientist to operate it. Solution software runs Prime and boasts a user-friendly graphical interface that makes Prime completely approachable and intuitive.
Moreover, Solution software includes a variety of pre-programmed protocols for common lab applications such as serial dilutions and plate filling. Solution software makes it easy to get started with liquid handling using Prime.
There’s no need for already overstretched lab staff to double as programmers. Extensive user feedback indicates that the software is intuitive and a favorite in the lab for that reason.
“We love customer feedback! What we’ve heard about Solution software is that it is a welcome addition across labs and lab networks. Users with extensive automation experience can hone in on the advanced programming attributes to ramp up their workflows. And at the same time, users with no automation experience can quickly build basic workflows and gain confidence in themselves and the Prime’s operation.”
Prime provides you with granular control over instrument operation, even when expanding production.
You can also leverage Prime’s full application programming interface (API) that enables integration with just about any laboratory management information system (LIMS).
Prime’s Solution software is accessible and easy to learn for any user from the novice to the expert. Solution offers a visual, drag and drop programming interface with no coding skills necessary.
You may also control Prime from its embedded user interface for simple liquid handling steps without needing to program a protocol at all. With Prime, the possibilities can seem endless.
A Prime Difference: Versatility
When Prime is integrated with our Cellario whole lab automation software, new realms of versatility are activated.
Cellario organizes, schedules, and controls multi-device automated work cells whether the work cells are in a single lab, multiple labs, or across a large scientific enterprise.
When you take advantage of Prime and Cellario, you can simplify workflow scheduling and device control, which in turn enhances time savings and elevates the user experience. This combination also offers robust processing performance with high-quality data output.
To add to its versatility, Prime gives you 360 degrees of visibility to the deck and labware management carousel. It also enables manual access from the front of the device and automated access from the back.
Every pipetting head accesses every nest position, and the collaborative robotic arm can serve multiple devices off-deck. This makes Prime an essential automated liquid handling tool for labs that need to process large numbers of samples quickly and efficiently, even as demands grow.
Prime quickly and easily changes out pipetting heads to support a massive volume range. This versatile workflow-enabling feature means your lab staff can perform entire workflows on one device without delays due to cumbersome pipette head exchanges.
In addition, Prime is built to allow staff to convert storage and waste areas into new configurations as work needs change and evolve.
Versatility also translates into time savings. Prime’s extensive features and flexibility means that it can automate tasks that would take hours or even days to complete manually. By doing so, you and your staff can process more samples in less time. Subsequently, you can get results faster and can make more informed decisions.
Revolutionize Your Lab with Prime
Prime is an investment in the future of your lab, your staff, and your workflow scalability.
Let’s revisit our scenario of being asked to ramp up production from five to fifty well plates per day. With many other liquid handlers, you might lose valuable time and effort, but as the leading automated liquid handler, Prime is designed to make life in the lab easier.
Even a novice user can quickly set up an automated process using the intuitive interface.
With Prime installed as a lab assistant with extreme liquid handling skills, your lab can get closer to its next breakthrough without burnout, and your business strategy stays on track. It may even move you towards your goals faster than you anticipated.
With Prime as your revolutionary laboratory automation platform, your lab can foster quality, high-volume discovery, rigorous results; all while maximizing walkaway time. In doing so, you can achieve maximum efficiency.
Prime is relentlessly different from any other automation machine or platform. It is the future.
