Liquid Handling Platforms Move Liquids with Sound

Acoustic droplet ejection technology offers touchless transfer of a wide variety of fluids, with major benefits in life science applications including diagnostics, drug discovery, genomics, and proteomics.

The elimination of pipette tips saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in decreased consumables and provides dramatically better answers as compounds and other materials adsorb to pipette tips during transfer. Accuracy is maintained from first drop through last for a wide variety of fluids, including many considered intractable by other liquid handlers.


By precisely delivering the amount of acoustic energy required, the challenges faced by other liquid handling platforms, such as variable surface tension and viscosity, are eliminated.

Labcyte (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) has developed new acoustic droplet ejection parameters that enable users to eject multiple fluid types on a single instrument. These fluids include common biological buffers, protein and nucleic acid solutions, cell culture media, surfactants, and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO).

New developments for Labcyte Echo liquid handlers provide real-time fluid monitoring to ensure precise and accurate dispensing for a wide range of fluid types and applications. The technology is coupled with the company's Deerac instruments. The new capabilities are available in bundled packages and provide exactly the tools needed for specific applications.

The Echo 555 liquid handler is the world's fastest acoustic droplet ejection (ADE) liquid handling platform. It transfers 2.5 nL of up to 640,000 samples, or 50 nL of up to 463,000 samples, directly to assay wells in 24 hours. The handler surveys each well to report the fluid volume in the wells and the water content for samples in DMSO. This system is ideally suited to any laboratory that requires very high-throughput liquid handling.

The Echo 550 liquid handler is the choice for ultralow-volume liquid handling in leading pharmaceutic companies. Like the Echo 555 liquid handler, the Echo 550 liquid handler reports both fluid volume and DMSO hydration.

The Echo 520 liquid handler delivers the same superior precision and accuracy as the 550 and 555 models, for laboratories with lower throughput needs. The Echo 520 liquid handler reports source well volume but does not report DMSO hydration values.

Greater productivity is realized with application-specific software dedicated to maximizing the efficiency of the Echo liquid handler. The software includes Echo Dose-Response Software, Echo Cherry Pick Software, and Echo Plate Reformat Software.

"[Customers are able] to transfer liquids for a wide range of applications including siRNA screening, qPCR, genotyping and total assay assembly for drug discovery,” said Rich Ellson, Labcyte CTO. "Customers have chosen Echo liquid handlers because they provide better precision and accuracy, reduce operating costs and eliminate cross-contamination."

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