Tecan has launched the Fluent Mix and Pierce workstation to introduce automation to whole blood pipetting in clinical environments.
The instrument configuration is intended to standardise pre-analytical sample handling and mixing and is part of an ongoing collaboration with Qiagen aiming to optimise sample preparation for latent tuberculosis testing with the QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus assay.
The workstation uses a flexible channel arm equipped with Tecan piercing tips to aliquot whole blood samples directly from vacuum blood collection tubes or septum-capped tubes without the need for manual lid removal.
This aims to reduce the risk of laboratory staff coming into contact with infectious materials, and save time when performing tube-to-tube or tube-to-plate transfers and whole blood assays. The workstation also features a tube rotator which provides 360-degree tube mixing to maintain whole blood samples in suspension without hemolysis and includes barcode scanning for both primary and secondary tubes to allow process traceability in clinical settings.
Dr Klaus Lun, Executive VP and Head of the Life Sciences Business Division at Tecan, stated: “Our vision at Tecan is to empower every laboratory, every day, around the world, and we are delighted to collaborate with Qiagen – a global leader in the important area of modern latent TB detection – to help even more labs to increase productivity and reduce processing errors through automation of tedious manual steps.”
Jean-Pascal Viola, Senior VP, Head of the Molecular Diagnostics Business Area and Corporate Business Development at Qiagen said: “We are pleased to expand our collaboration with Tecan – a proven leader with a track record of providing best-in-class liquid handling technology solutions – to further improve the automation of pre-analytical whole blood processing. This partnership will greatly accelerate the adoption and ease of processing of single-tube samples for latent TB detection.”
