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Freedom EVO®

Automated liquid handling with freedom to evolve

The Freedom EVO series of versatile liquid handling workstations serves an extensive range of life science applications and builds on over 20 years of Tecan experience to deliver complete, flexible and expandable automation solutions. Each workstation can be equipped with a choice of robotic arms, liquid handling tools and other devices to meet your requirements. With the intuitive Freedom EVOware® software, each system can successfully automate applications in drug discovery and development, diagnostics, veterinary and forensic laboratories.

The Freedom EVO series of workstations is available in four different base sizes (75, 100, 150 and 200 cm), each of which can easily be tailored to the laboratory’s requirements with...

Veterinary – Avian influenza testing

Automated NAT for veterinary diagnostics

Safe and proper diagnosis of biological threats such as avian influenza requires appropriate virus isolation and identification, including determination of the virus pathogenicity. Tecan has collaborated with third party reagent providers to automate nucleic acid sample preparation, including purification, normalization, PCR set-up and amplification, for diagnosing avian influenza. Automated immunoassays for diagnosing avian influenza for a variety of sample types are also available.

Tecan has validated an automated nucleic acid extraction and sample preparation platform for diagnosis of avian influenza, based on the Freedom EVO® 200 liquid handling workstation and Macherey-Nagel® NucleoSpin® Viral RNA kit, and...

Freedom EVO®

Freedom to evolve

The Freedom EVO Series offers four different worktable capacities each with building-block modularity that brings precision liquid handling, easy-touse robotics and advanced process control within the reach of every laboratory scientist. From firsttime user to laboratory automation specialist, select either, the best pre-configured automation solution for your laboratory or,...

Elimination of amplifiable nucleic-acid carryover from fixed tips on an automated liquid handler in a forensic DNA laboratory

Method validation study

Most fluid-filled automated liquid handlers, or pipetting robots, can be configured with either adapters for disposable tips or fixed, washable tips. For laboratories with moderate to high-throughput processes, fixed tips are often preferable, for two reasons. First, disposable tips initially present on a robotic workstation are consumed and must be re-supplied, either limiting the length of unattended operation between manual replacement of tips, or requiring the dedication of valuable space on the pipetting area of the liquid handler for the tips and logistics devices to supply them. Second, the ongoing purchase of disposable tips results in much higher operating costs than those of the alternative, fixed tips. Disposable tips also present logistical challenges of supply management and storage, and have a greater environmental impact in the form of waste plastics. Fixed tips are preferable in many cases; however, the critical requirement for the use of fixed tips is that they may be washed until they are free of any sample materials, in order to...

Avian influenza

Automated NAT for veterinarian diagnostics

Avian influenza is a bird disease caused by the highly pathogenic influenza virus. Influenza viruses are inherently unstable and, as they lack a genetic proof-reading mechanism, small errors that occur when the virus copies itself go undetected and uncorrected. Specific mutations and evolution in influenza viruses cannot be predicted, making it difficult if not impossible to know if or when a virus such as H5N1 might acquire the properties needed to spread easily and sustainably among humans. This difficulty is increased by the present lack of understanding which specific mutations would lead to increased transmissibility of the virus among humans (www.who.int). Here we describe an automated method for nucleic acid extraction and avian influenza diagnosis.

The Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut / Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, the national reference center in Germany, announced in February 2006 that the avian influenza (highly pathogenic influenza A/H5N1 type) was found in several wild birds on the German island Rügen. The number of positively tested wild birds on February 22 was 103, and...

Automated PCR Clean-up

The MACHEREY-NAGEL NucleoFast 96 PCR Kit on a Tecan Freedom Nucleic Acid Sample Preparation Workstation

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) clean-up is a prerequisite for several downstream applica-tions, e.g. sequencing or microarray spotting. Ultrafiltration technology is a cost-effective and efficient method to remove undesired components like salts, detergents, primers, or additives from PCR reactions. In contrast to classical precipitation or size-exclusion chroma-tography methods, no centrifugation steps are required. Due to the fact that neither salt nor ethanol is required for clean-up, the risk of salt or ethanol carry-over is excluded compared to glass-milk or silica filter based purification methods.
The NucleoFast 96 PCR kit from MACHEREY-NAGEL is optimized for use on liquid handling workstations, e.g. the Tecan Freedom Nucleic Acid Sample Preparation Workstation equipped with a Te-VacS vacuum module. The separation plate seals to the vacuum block without addi-tional push down steps. Furthermore, the plate design allows sealing of barcode labels for...

Automated PCR Setup

Automated Real-Time PCR Set-up on a Tecan Freedom PCR Workstation

Real-Time chemistry allows for the detection of PCR amplification products during the early phases of the reaction. Measuring the kinetics of the reaction provides a distinct advantage over traditional PCR. The Tecan Freedom PCR Workstation provides a highly flexible platform for automated set-up of traditional PCR or Real-Time PCR. Using Tecan’s disposable tips, precise and accurate set-up even at low volumes can performed without any risk of cross-contamination. Moreover, with the integrated robotic manipula-tor (gripper tool) and appropriate storage mod-ules safe and reliable set-up of multiple batches of 96 samples is possible without any user iaction.

Multiplex Real-Time PCR can be used for quanti-fication of downy mildew infestation of grape plants. For this purpose, total DNA from plant (Vitis vinifera) and parasite (Plasmopara viticola) is extracted from infected leaf punches by...

Freedom EVO | PCR

Flexible solutions for high-throughput PCR

The Tecan Freedom EVO PCR workstation is a fully scalable and modular system enabling PCR and cycle sequencing reaction preparation as well as normalization applications.The pipetting platform offers unsurpassed flexibility to support virtually all the reaction preparation needs of laboratories whatever the throughput. Reactions may be prepared in micro tubes, 96- or 384-well plate formats. Precise and reliable pipetting of low volumes is performed by the advanced fluidic system including high-performance low volume tips. Contamination-free pipetting of template DNA, DNA primers, and other components (buffers, enzyme, nucleotides) is guaranteed even for the most sensitive amplification procedures by the 4- or 8-tip liquid handling arm or the 96- and 384-multi-channel pipetting option. Extended automation of amplification procedures can be easily achieved by integration of Tecan’s GENios plate reader for nucleic acid quantification and normalization as well as by...

Automated differentiation of stem cells with the Freedom EVO® and Millicell®-24 filter plates

Scientists at Millipore have developed an automated method for the neural differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) in monolayers, instead of the non-automatable, three-dimensional cell clusters that are typically used. The approach relies on a Freedom EVO® 150 liquid handling platform from Tecan, with Millicell®-24 co-culturing filter plates from Millipore.

Millipore Corporation is a global life science company, headquartered in Massachusetts, USA, that provides technologies, tools and services for bioscience research and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Millipore has worked with Tecan for a number of years in a variety of...

Unique flexibility from the Freedom EVO® 75

Tecan has launched its latest development for the constantly evolving, compact Freedom EVO® 75 robotic workstation. The 8 Plus 1 Access™ tool is a clever and cost-effective eight-channel arm for fast and fl exible pipetting. This unique new arm can pipette across a microplate with eight tips simultaneously, and access an individual sample with a single versatile tip, all on the same tool. The new option combines the best of Tecan’s liquid handling experience, giving customers:

• the security of liquid level detection, down to 50 μl of conductive liquid (only for the first tip);
• the flexibility of a large volume range: 2-1000 μl;
• the efficiency of multi-pipetting with 1000 μl tips;
• the reliability and precision of the Freedom EVO series.

The 8 Plus 1 Access arm makes routine pipetting tasks, including reagent distribution, serial dilutions and plate reformatting, fast and easy to set up, and...

High performance ion channel screening

npi electronic has revolutionized automated drug screening with the launch of the ScreeningTool, an automated system for screening of voltage- or ligand-gated ion channels in Xenopus oocytes, with millisecond resolution and high speed voltage clamping. The innovative instrument depends on a Tecan OEM liquid handling system for automated drug delivery, integrated with a miniature chamber design and unique amplifier to provide unprecedented speed, reproducibility and efficiency for high quality drug screening applications.

The ScreeningTool was developed through a collaboration between npi electronic and Prof Steffen Hering from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Vienna, who originally invented the miniature recording chamber (patent pending). It was designed to...

High throughput microsomal stability assays for analyzing candidate drugs

Drug discovery researchers from the Istituto di Ricerche di Biologia Molecolare (IRBM) “P. Angeletti”, the Italian site of Merck Research Laboratories, have developed automated methods for performing high throughput microsomal stability assays using a Tecan Genesis RWS™ 200 Workstation. Automating these assays allows the researchers to predict the pharmacokinetics of multiple candidate drugs in just two days, instead of four, and vastly increases the throughput. Pharmacokinetic analysis of candidate drugs is a critical part of the drug development process, and helps to eliminate compounds with inappropriate bioavailability, toxicity, effective concentrations or duration or persistence of action. Such compounds would fail at later stages in drug development, so eliminating these earlier in the process saves a great deal of money, time and labor.

Dr Massimiliano Fonsi, DMPK Chemist at IRBM, has developed these microsomal stability assays using the Tecan workstation equipped with an eight tip liquid handling (LiHa) arm and robotic manipulator (RoMa) arm, Thermomixer and heater/cooler system. This set-up performs all the liquid handling steps, including...

High throughput screening (HTS) systems at Boehringer Ingelheim

The Tecan Integration Group (TIG) is currently putting together Boehringer Ingelheim’s third fully automated TRAC™-based screening system to meet the growing throughput needs of the screening laboratories at its principal research site in Biberach, Germany.

As one of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies, Boehringer Ingelheim invests heavily in research and development, and its laboratories at Biberach are currently focusing on three therapeutic areas: diseases of the CNS, metabolic disorders and respiratory illnesses. The high throughput screening (HTS) group, led by Dr Martin J Valler, is involved in a
range of...

High throughput nucleofection® with the Freedom EVO® workstation and amaxa 96-well Shuttle®

Tecan and amaxa GmbH have successfully integrated the amaxa Nucleofector® 96-well Shuttle® System with the Tecan Freedom EVO® liquid handling workstation, allowing fully automated, high throughput transfection of primary cells and difficult-to-transfect cell lines, including non-dividing neurons and T cells, with siRNA, DNA and other substrates. The collaboration was originally instigated for Dr Claudia Merz at Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Germany, who needed fully automated, high throughput transfection of immune system cells for RNAi-based screening experiments.

Scientists routinely use transfection techniques to insert DNA or RNA into cells and modify the expression levels of a certain gene or genes. This approach is often used for functional studies of genes, such as RNA interference (RNAi) to silence gene expression; for cell-based manufacturing of therapeutic products (eg. antibodies, hormones or vaccines); and for structural studies of proteins and amplification of DNA or RNA in cells for purification. Many of these applications require high throughput transfection in combination with...

High throughput screening of infectious virus entry in mammalian cells

Researchers at the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology (IMSB)*, ETH Zurich, have two Freedom EVO® 200 liquid handling workstations that have been custom developed for high throughput screening of infectious virus entry in mammalian cells. The large-scale study aims to create a profile of all the mammalian genes involved in infection by 11 major viruses, and is estimated to be complete within a year.

Can you imagine not having to worry about viral infections – no more flu, no risk of chicken pox, maybe even the end of HIV? This could only be possible in a world where viruses are less able to develop resistance to anti-viral therapies. It might sound too good to be true – but it’s a very real dream for Dr Lucas Pelkmans, assistant professor at the IMSB, and his
colleagues. Their theory is simple: rather than try to attack the virus, you change...

Perfecting technology for...

Scientists at Columbia University have created three fl exible, fully automated workstations based on Freedom EVO® 200 platforms for the assay development work they are performing as part of the NIH Molecular Libraries Roadmap initiative.

A year into the NIH Roadmap initiative, a team of researchers at Columbia University has established a truly remarkable, purpose-built assay facility in the middle of Manhattan. The new 6,000 square foot facility, which has been set up from scratch, is one of ten screening centers in the US that together form the MLSCN, the Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network. The centers aim to bring in a range of diff erent types of assays from the scientifi c community, both enzymatic and...