Molecular Devices QPix HT Microbial Colony Picker

Colony picking is an essential step in biological research, as scientists often isolate microbial clones to mass produce DNA or proteins for a variety of applications downstream. Traditionally, colony picking is performed manually using sterile pipette tips or inoculation loops, which are usually slow, labour-intensive and time-consuming.

The QPix HT Microbial Colony Picker is a flexible, modular and fully automated colony picking and library management system, ready for robotics integration for high throughput and walkaway time. By leveraging colony picking technology to alleviate bottlenecks and efficiently screen through massive genetic libraries, the easy-to-use, intuitive software guides users through setting up colony picking runs where precision robotics can be used to pick the right colonies every time.

In addition to microbial screening, the system automates several sample preparation and plate handling processes such as flexible plate replication, gridding, hit picking, transfer of bacterial liquid culture and plating on agar. Automated plating and streaking of 96 samples can be done in 30 min, providing walkaway time. Automated plate handling and data tracking streamlines downstream assay and sample management.

The colony pickers support a wide variety of microorganisms with a suite of organism-specific pins, options of blue/white selection, size and proximity, and zone of inhibition. They can pick up to 3000 colonies/h in white light or 2000 colonies using fluorescence intensity, with a picking efficiency of >98%.