Tecan automated solutions accelerate crop improvement

Scientists at the Institute of Plant Breeding at the University of Kiel, Germany, are using a Tecan Freedom EVO® liquid handling workstation to perform high throughput DNA purification and normalization, for the development of TILLING® (Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes) programs for rape seed and sugar beet. Tecan has worked closely with Macherey-Nagel to develop an automated protocol for the NucleoSpin® 96 Plant DNA extraction kits, helping the Institute achieve high throughput extraction.

“We chose Tecan’s workstation because we needed an automated, high throughput system to extract and normalize DNA for PCR amplification,” explained Professor Christian Jung, Director of the Institute of Plant Breeding. Using the Freedom EVO platform, in combination with the Macherey-Nagel extraction kits, we can obtain highly purified DNA, able to withstand long-term storage. This is a huge help for our projects, eliminating the need to normalize thousands of DNA samples by hand, and improving the quality of the extracted DNA compared with manual techniques. Although we have huge numbers of DNA extractions to perform, the Freedom EVO has the capacity to cope with these sample numbers.”

To find out more on Tecan’s Freedom EVO workstations, visit www.tecan.com/freedomevo

 

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 instruments and automated workflow solutions for laboratories in the life sciences sector. With its subsidiary REMP (www.remp.com), Tecan is the market leader in automated laboratory storage and logistics systems. Its clients include pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, university research departments, forensic and diagnostic laboratories. As an original equipment manufacturer, 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 2009, Tecan generated sales of CHF 392 million (USD 361.2 million; EUR 259.6 million). Registered shares of Tecan Group are traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange (TK: TECN/Reuters: TECZn.S/ ISIN CH0012100191).

 

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