Männedorf, Switzerland, 07 November 2003: Tecan, a leading player in the Life Sciences supply industry, recently announced the launch of AutoLoader, the latest addition to Aquarius, Tecan's bench-top multi-channel pipetting solution. The AutoLoader provides, collects, sorts and stores various plate types for Aquarius and is fully compatible with the stacker systems on Tecan's detection and screening units. With a capacity of 250 plates or 72 disposable tip racks, it significantly adds to Aquarius' flexibility and capabilities.

In order to combine plate preparation and plate logistics, Aquarius can now be equipped with a supply unit for plates and disposable tips. AutoLoader features six stacker columns for individual storage of plates and tips providing a large capacity and thereby enabling researchers to save time for more important tasks. Moreover, the Aquarius AutoLoader system optimizes processing time and increases throughput by simultaneous pipetting and (un-)loading of plates. The system closes the gap between the prepared plates and the plate processing units. AutoLoader also follows the design principles that were applied to Aquarius: small footprint, extremely efficient use of space and easy to program.

"The AutoLoader significantly extends the utility of our compact liquid handling solution. Aquarius can now be fed automatically and the prepared plates can be easily passed onto the next device. This eliminates the main bottleneck present in previous liquid handling systems", says Nicolas Sandoz, Product Manager at Tecan, "Making such a complete compact liquid handling and plate managing system available will help laboratories to reduce time for plate preparation and sorting as well as to increase throughput, not to mention the saving in man hours." 

For more information, please contact :

Product information:

Tecan Group Ltd.
Cornelia Kegele
Manager Marketing Communications and Branding
Tel.: +41 (0)44 922 81 11
Fax: +41 (0)44 922 82 81
e-mail: cornelia.kegele@tecan.com
Internet: www.tecan.com

Editorial contact:

Northbank Communications
Stefan Platz
Account Manager
Tel.: +49 (0)89 1895 7057
e-mail: s.platz@northbankcommunications.com