Automation Innovations in Liquid Biopsy and Biobanking

Tecan introduces Phase Separator™, a ground-breaking liquid separation innovation for enhanced time savings and precision in laboratory protocols. This revolutionary technology offers targeted advantages within liquid biopsy and biobanking, extending its positive impacts to genomics, proteomics, and various disease domains such as oncology, neurodegenerative conditions, and metabolic disorders.

The Phase Separator stands as an exclusive pipetting feature integrated into Tecan's cutting-edge Fluent® Automation Workstation, empowered by the innovative Air Flexible Channel Arm™ (Air FCA). Designed to tackle the intricate task of identifying interfaces between liquids and accomplishing precise separation of adjacent phases, this technology adeptly mitigates contamination risks. Its application is particularly fitting for isolating plasma in centrifuged blood samples.

Tecan's ground-breaking technology excels at attaining exceptional precision in identifying liquid levels within tubes, completely independent of any barcode or markings on the tubes. The Phase Separator seamlessly integrates phase detection into the pipetting process, enabling remarkable processing speeds whether working with tubes or plates. The efficiency is further amplified when all eight channels on the Air Flexible Channel Arm (Air FCA) operate in parallel, enabling the extraction of plasma from 24 tubes of centrifuged blood in less than 10 minutes. This speed is doubled on dual-arm systems. These advantages are attained without requiring additional bench space or extra equipment maintenance.

"Phase Separator represents a significant advance in liquid-separation technology,” said Luca Valeggia, Senior Vice President of Laboratory Automation at Tecan. “With its precision and streamlined workflow, it will deliver new levels of efficiency and reliability for both research and clinical applications. It will make an enormous contribution to liquid biopsy workflows, impacting disease diagnosis and monitoring, and to broader research applications, where it will help to accelerate discovery."

The introduction of Phase Separator reaffirms Tecan's global dedication to advancing healthcare innovation on a larger scale. This pioneering patent-pending technology facilitates quicker, more precise, and highly efficient processing of biological samples compared to traditional approaches. These enhancements directly lead to heightened productivity and reduced costs for laboratories, particularly influencing the rapidly evolving field of liquid biopsy.

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