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Laboratory equipment to dispense liquids From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A bulk reagent dispenser (BRD) is a type of commercially available laboratory equipment that dispenses liquid reagents in an automated fashion into microplates, multiwell plates, or microplate-like reservoirs, and specifically have the ability to transfer liquid from a "bulk" (i.e. >1L) source reservoir, but still dispense a programmable but relatively small volume of liquid, i.e. 10-500 μL. They are often used in drug discovery or pharmaceutical laboratories. They are distinguished from semi-automated or manual (hand-operated) equipment like pipettes, as well as from automated laboratory equipment that dispenses from relatively small source reservoirs (~10-500 μL) such as acoustic liquid handlers or liquid handling robots.
The first bulk reagent dispensers were the Titertek Autodrop and Dynatech Dynadrop MR that were first commercialized in the early 1980s & were used in immunology applications, such as diagnostic experiments to determine viral titer or ELISA assays.[1] Modern examples include the Thermo Multidrop Combi series,[2] or the Agilent (formerly BioTek) MultiFlo and MicroFill series.[3]
Bulk reagent dispensers use the following technologies to transfer liquid:
Bulk reagent dispensers also have channels and tips for dispensing liquid. Based on the 8-row or 12-column configuration of standard microplates, all modern bulk reagent dispensers currently have either:
Beyond the style and number of independent pumps, channels, and tips, BRDs also might use a manifold to distribute liquid:
If either the fluid inlet or dispense tips become partially or fully clogged, the performance of the BRD will become degraded in distinct and potentially subtle ways depending on if a manifold was used or not.
Bulk reagent dispensers require moving the dispense tips across the target wells, such that a relatively small number of pumps and tips can fill a large number of microplate wells. But even still, there are a few varieties:
It is worth mentioning, that for reasons of space & presumably mechanical design constraints, the degrees of freedom of movement for a BRD are typically spread across both the tips and the microplate. I.e. the microplate is moved in the X dimension, while the tips move in the Z (and Y) dimension(s).
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