To meet the needs of OSU's research and extension communities, a consortium of interests on the OSU campus have collaborated to purchase a Beckman-Coulter Biomek 2000 workstation. The Biomek is an state-of-the art solution-handling system that brings robotic productivity and accuracy to a wide variety of tasks, including the isolation of DNA by a variety of protocols, reformatting of samples in microcentrifuge tubes or microtiter plates, and assembly of reactions for studies in the fields of immunology, biochemistry, molecular biology, microbiology, and drug discovery.

In its basic configuration, the Biomek features accurate pipetting of volumes ranging from one to one thousand microliters using single-channel and eight-channel tools. Pipetting routines are created and controlled by a simple "point and click" graphic user interface that includes a library of commonly utilized lab ware and a graphical depiction of the operating deck. Additionally, the system includes "Wizard" software to facilitate normalization of samples to uniform concentrations and volumes by importing quantitative information from other instrumentation or from spreadsheets. As the University's needs grow, the basic utility of the Biomek can be expanded by adding accessories for vacuum filtration, shaking, plate heating, cooling, and washing, photometeric and magnetic separations.

The Facility also hosts a Symbiote micro-volume solution-handling robot. This instrument is a component of the Proteomics Solution / mass spectrometry package, and is designed for high throughput spotting of MALDI samoke plates and integrated sample tracking. The instrument utilizes low-dead-volume pipetting using "P-2", and may be programmed for other tasks.

 

More Information?
Facility clients are urged to contact Dr. Steven Hartson at (405)744-6191 for their questions.