Tecan and Siloam Biosciences Market New ELISA System

Tecan (Mannedorf, Switzerland) and Siloam Biosciences Inc. (Cincinnati, OH, USA) announced their intent to comarket an automated, low volume, high sensitivity, microfluidic enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

The system is based on Tecan’s Freedom EVO liquid handling technology and Siloam Biosciences’ OptiMax microplate. It offers rapid, sensitive, and specific chemifluorescence-based ELISA procedures using very small sample volumes. The automation-compatible OptiMax microplate is a new 96-well plate with a microfluidic channel at the base of each well that functions as a reaction chamber, taking advantage of the power of microfluidics to allow for low volume, rapid and sensitive immunoassay protocols.

The Freedom EVO automatically loads analytes and reagents into the wells of the microfluidic microplate, and allows the robotic manipulation of multiple OptiMax microplates. The microfluidic design of the Optimizer technology contributes to the speed, sensitivity, and small sample requirements. All reactions, including analyte capture and detection, occur within an approximately 5 μL microfluidic reaction chamber. The microchannel geometry and small reaction volume favor rapid reaction kinetics.

A typical assay requires only a 5 μL sample and each reaction step is completed within 10 to 20 minutes. With wash times, substrate incubations, and read times accounted for, a typical Optimizer technology-based ELISA can be completed within two hours. Rapid reaction kinetics on a microscale, coupled with microplate automation on the Freedom EVO workstation, allows for high sensitivity and fast assays.

Aniruddha Puntambekar, COO at Siloam Biosciences Inc., commented, “Tecan’s automation systems enhance the performance of OptiMax automation plates and we are pleased to be able to offer improvements to ELISA users based on Tecan’s automation expertise. Together, our technologies provide significant advances to immunoassay testing that will benefit customers of both companies.”

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Tecan
Siloam Biosciences Inc.