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Courtesy of Genetix

Standard mammalian tissue culture techniques usually require growth media refreshment every two to three days, accomplished by manually pouring or pipetting off the old medium and replacing it with new. To circumvent this tedious process, New Milton, UK-based Genetix http://www.genetix.co.uk recently launched QFresh, the first instrument designed for the automatic exchange of culture media in petri dishes.

The programmable instrument does it all: A mechanical apparatus removes a dish from the source stack, removes its lid, positions it under a liquid-handling head that performs both the aspiration and the dispensing, and replaces the lid. The system is not only faster than manual reagent exchange (a stack of twenty 100-mm diameter Petri dishes can be processed in about 10 minutes), but it also features complete walk-away automation, says Mark Truesdale, senior applications specialist at Genetix.

Removable and fully autoclavable parts are assembled in a laminar flow hood, and...

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