For Immediate Release
Contact:
Joe Olechno, Ph.D.
Labcyte Inc.
1190 Borregas Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Toll free: 877 742 6548
Tel: 408 747 2000 x161
Fax: 408 747 2010
Email: Joe.Olechno@Labcyte.com
www.labcyte.com
Labcyte Echo Acoustic Liquid Handler an Essential Component
of Pharmaceutical High-Throughput Screening
Recent Issue of JBS Emphasizes the Importance of Acoustic Liquid Handling in
Drug Discovery
Sunnyvale, CA — August 4, 2009 — The most recent edition of the Journal of Biomolecular
Screening, the world’s leading peer-reviewed publication on drug discovery sciences, focused on
the significant advances made recently in the field of compound management. In this special
edition over half of the sixteen articles specifically mention the Labcyte Echo® liquid handlers.
Of particular interest is the article by Grant et al., AstraZeneca, which states, “In summary, the
introduction of the Echo acoustic reformatter has represented a major milestone in
pharmaceutical screening applications. It has revolutionized the compound management process
to support HTS.” (http://jbx.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/5/452)
In the paper by Zaragoza-Sundqvist et al., Astra Zeneca,the authors said, “Four years ago, the
first acoustic droplet ejectors (ADEs) were launched on the market, providing a new generation of
high throughput noncontact liquid handlers that outclassed traditional contact instruments in
almost every respect...Higher quality is achieved through greater accuracy and precision,
whereas lower sample volumes can be used, and 1536 plate formats have become a reliable
reality.” (http://jbx.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/5/509)
Articles by Matson et al., Bristol-Myers Squibb, (http://jbx.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/5/476),
Pfeifer and Scheel, Novartis, (http://jbx.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/5/492) and Blaxill et al.,
GlaxoSmithKline, (http://jbx.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/5/547) use the acoustic auditing
capabilities of the Labcyte Echo technology to determine the volume of wells and the level of
DMSO hydration.
Labcyte Echo liquid handlers use sound to move a wide range of liquids. Eliminating physical
contact with the sample makes the transfer contamination-free as well as extremely precise and
accurate for a wide range of life science applications. The system has a working range from 2.5
nL to many microliters. Echo liquid handlers automatically measure the depth of fluid in each
source well, informing the user of the quantity and quality of samples. This technology is
especially well suited to biological applications in which precision measurements are critical and
cross-contamination of samples can interfere with accurate interpretation of the results. Software
especially designed for cherry-picking, dose-response set-up and plate reformatting, optimize the
system ease-of-use.
About Labcyte
Labcyte Inc. uses sound to move liquids. This green technology provides significantly better
analytical results while saving money. The ‘touchless’ technology provides dramatically better
answers by eliminating pipette tips and the adsorption of compounds during transfer, while saving
hundreds of thousands of dollars in decreased consumables. Accuracy is maintained from first
drop through last for a wide variety of fluids, including many considered intractable by other
techniques. The technology is coupled with our Deerac™ instruments to make Labcyte a leader
in liquid handling. Together with the Deerac systems, the award-winning Echo® liquid handlers
are used in all of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies, as well as in leading academic and
research institutions worldwide. Labcyte technologies have broad applications including the fields
of compound management, genomics, proteomics, particle manufacturing, encapsulation,
imaging mass spectrometry, and live-cell transfer. Labcyte is headquartered in Sunnyvale,
California with offices in Dublin, Ireland and has 39 U.S., 7 European and two Japanese patents
and additional U.S. and international filings. For more information, visit www.labcyte.com.