2013-02-11 22:04:05 - Scientists at the University of Toronto, Canada, have chosen generations of Tecan microplate readers to monitor the effects of environmental or drug perturbation on molecularly barcoded yeasts.

The Corey Nislow and Guri Giaever laboratories – which have recently moved to the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia – are responsible for monitoring the growth of large pools of barcoded yeast, simultaneously screening 6,000 mutants. Corey explained: “We first developed a workstation for this work in 2000, which consisted of four Tecan GENios™ microplate readers integrated with a multiprobe liquid handler to monitor the growth of cultures. We chose the GENios reader because it was the only instrument at the time that had a sufficient orbit to keep yeast cells well suspended and that could maintain temperature without condensation. Although this system is still in use, transfer of plates for periodic sampling is very

much the rate-­limiting step of this set-up, so we created a second generation system using Tecan’s Safire™ reader and a Freedom EVO® 200 liquid handling workstation equipped with six shaking incubators.”



“We didn’t just ‘settle on’ Tecan, we purposely selected the Company, and so did all of our collaborators, who loved the growth curves they saw from our work. We have remained with Tecan and, between the Toronto site and a sister laboratory at Stanford University, we now have 24 GENios systems, all of which are still running! The flexibility of the Tecan systems is a big advantage, and our third generation system at the University of British Columbia – with two Infinite® series readers and twelve shaking incubators – will further increase our capabilities,” concluded Corey.



To find out more on Tecan’s detection solutions, visit www.tecan.com/detection



The GENios and Safire systems have been superceded by the Infinite range of microplate readers, which features even more enhanced capabilities and is ideal for the assays and methods described above.



For more information please contact

Tecan Trading AG

Cornelia Kegele / Antonietta Allocca

Seestrasse 103, CH-8708 Männedorf

Tel +41 (0)44 922 81 11, Fax +41 (0)44 922 81 12

info@tecan.com www.tecan.com



About Tecan
Tecan (www.tecan.com) is a leading global provider of laboratory instruments and solutions in biopharmaceuticals, forensics and clinical diagnostics. The company specializes in the development, production and distribution of automated workflow solutions for laboratories in the life sciences sector. Its clients include pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, university research departments, and forensic and diagnostic laboratories. As an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), Tecan is also a leader in developing and manufacturing OEM instruments and components that are then distributed by partner companies. Founded in Switzerland in 1980, the company has manufacturing, research and development sites in both Europe and North America and maintains a sales and service network in 52 countries. In 2011, Tecan generated sales of CHF 377 million (USD 424 million; EUR 306 million). Registered shares of Tecan Group are traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange (TK: TECN/Reuters: TECZn.S/Swiss security number: 1210019).