FREEDOM EVO: Tecan’s automated cell culture machine is useful for many routine processes and can be upgraded for use with culture flasks and cell suspensions. COURTESY OF TECAN GROUP LTD.Letting a robotic system do your cell culturing can pay off in more ways than just sparing you carpal tunnel. If you have to produce a large number of cells for high-throughput cell-based assays, it can free up hours of time, depending on how many people in your lab do manual cell culture. “If each person in your group has more than two or three cell types to culture, or if you have to feed [or replace the media on] cells frequently, especially on weekends, you should look into automation,” says Robin Felder of the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, cofounder of Global Cell Solutions, a company that sells cell-culture products.
Automating cell culture can also make cell growth more consistent because steps like mixing and pipetting are more tightly controlled, says Rob Thomas of Loughborough University in the U.K. This is important for researchers such as Thomas whowant to produce stem cells for clinical applications.
A fully automated system can handle all the tasks involved in culturing adherent cells, which grow by attaching to the bottom of a cell culture vessel. These tasks include feeding the cells, replacing old growth media with fresh media, and passing the cells. The most delicate of the common tasks, passing, requires detaching a confluent cell layer from the vessel, using an enzyme that breaks up the cells’ attachment proteins. The now suspended cells are then easily transferred into a ...
