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Quantitative characterization of non-contact microdispensing technologies for the sub-microliter range
Stefan Bammesberger1, Andreas Ernst, Nadine Losleben
1Laboratory for MEMS Applications, IMTEK - Department of Microsystems Engineering, University of Freiburg, Germany. stefan.bammesberger@imtek.uni-freiburg.de
Drug Discovery Today
|December 12, 2012
Summary
Comparing non-contact liquid handling technologies for high-throughput screening (HTS) reveals challenges in achieving high accuracy below 1 microliter. Performance metrics like intra-run, inter-run, and tip-to-tip precision are crucial for evaluating automated dispensing systems.
Area of Science:
- Biotechnology
- Analytical Chemistry
- Laboratory Automation
Background:
- High-throughput screening (HTS) demands precise and accurate liquid handling.
- Non-contact dispensing technologies are critical for HTS but require robust comparison methods.
- Evaluating dispensing performance across different technologies and volumes is essential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To establish a framework for comparing non-contact dispensing technologies for automated liquid handling.
- To characterize the performance of five established non-contact dispensing technologies in the 0.05-10 μl range.
- To introduce universally applicable performance parameters for dispensing accuracy and precision.
Main Methods:
- Characterization of five established non-contact dispensing technologies (valve-based and positive displacement-based).
- Introduction of 'intra-run', 'inter-run', and 'tip-to-tip' contexts for performance evaluation.
- Utilizing a NIST traceable spectrophotometric measurement method for experimental characterization.
Main Results:
- Intra-Run CV ranged from 0.4% to 7.7%, and Inter-Run CV from 0.5% to 10.9%.
- Tip-to-Tip CV varied between 1.4% and 9.9% for volumes less than 1 μl.
- Achieving absolute accuracy better than 5.0% proved difficult for sub-microliter volumes.
Conclusions:
- Non-contact dispensing technologies show variable performance, especially at low volumes (<1 μl).
- The defined performance parameters (intra-run, inter-run, tip-to-tip) provide a standardized method for comparison.
- Further optimization is needed for non-contact dispensers to meet stringent accuracy requirements in HTS sub-microliter applications.
