Walk-Away Fully Automated Instrument Processes Microbiology Samples

A walk-away, fully automatic specimen processor has been developed for processing microbiology samples. The instrument uses a single universal platform to automatically plant and streak most bacteriology specimens, such as swabs, urine, and fecal samples, regardless of the specimen's container style or specimen type.

The walk-away specimen processing (WASP) system can run continuously, and every hour is able to process at least 180 urine samples, throat swabs, or nasal swabs. Using robotics, the WASP instrument replicates exactly what the medical technologists do today, from opening the specimen container, dipping the loop, planting the sample to streaking the plates using traditional preprogrammed quadrant streaking techniques.

WASP includes a library of textbook style streaking patterns or the option to design and save custom streak patterns. The machine returns to the container any number of times for additional samples if more plates need to be seeded, or it automatically closes the specimen container to move to the next specimen. The laboratory technologist only returns to the machine when it is necessary to collect the finished streaked plates or to load up more specimens.

Copan Diagnostics, Inc. (Murrieta, CA, USA) developed the Wasp system. Norman Sharples, executive vice president for Copan Diagnostics, said that "the launch of the WASP system is aligned with Copan Diagnostics' vision and its tradition of innovation in pre-analytics, responsiveness to customer needs, and excellence. The WASP is a real breakthrough in technology that will revolutionize the way clinical microbiology specimens are processed in the future because of its flexibility, precision, reliability, and impressive volume capacity.”

Copan Diagnostics is a manufacturer of clinical bacteriology and virology collection and transport systems. The company has a complete range of microbial sampling products, a full variety of inoculation loops, needles, spreaders, and transfer pipettes, as well as recent innovations, such as a new line of flocked swabs, universal transport medium (UTM), and the liquid transport swab (Eswab).

A video of the instrument can be seen at the company's Website.



Related Links:
Copan Diagnostics
Video of WASP