Explore methods for more efficient molecular cloning and strain engineering applications

Fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas are currently the gold standard of meeting our energy needs. High levels of fossil fuel consumption have led to depleted resources, increased cost, and high levels pollution. A Fossil-fuel based energy economy has been deemed unsustainable and, therefore, the adoption of sustainable and environmentally compatible energy sources is imperative. Molecular cloning has been used to engineer strains of microbes that can perform a range of processes needed to create sustainable biofuels such as ethanol as well as useful bioproducts. Due to the high throughput nature of microbial strain engineering, molecular cloning workflows are prone to human error, labor-intensive, and time consuming. These challenges create large bottlenecks resulting in low productivity. Strain engineering can benefit greatly from the increased productivity of an automated colony picker such as Molecular Devices QPix® 400 Series Microbial Colony Picker, which automatically picks up to 3000 colonies per hour or 30,000 colonies per day with automatic pick run data tracking and database management. For higher throughput and more walkaway time, there are custom design options for an automated work-cell that integrates user desired instrumentation, and robotic control with the QPix colony picker to improve productivity and eliminate bottlenecks.