Big advance in contact-free movement of tiny amounts of liquid

Acoustic liquid handlers have been available for more than a decade. They enable nanoliters of liquid to be accurately transferred from one well to another, without any risk of contamination or loss. The liquid handlers adapt to different fluid types and enable direct dilution of a liquid rather than serial dilution, which is prone to errors and cross-contamination. Over the past 15 years, acoustic liquid handlers have helped reduce experiment time, improved efficiency, and provided cleaner results in fields such as drug discovery and synthetic biology. However, there is room for improvement. The acoustic instrumentation can be noisy, and some machines require tricky maintenance. With its next generation of Echo® Liquid Handlers, Labcyte is addressing these concerns, as well as introducing newly developed acoustic sample tubes as an alternative to the standard well plates.