The VersArray Colony Picker and Arrayer is capable of picking colonies, arraying the colonies, replicating the arrayed colonies and pipetting liquids. The main component of the instrument is a high precision robot that is used to pick colonies from a source 240 mm x 240 mm agar plate with the aid of an 8-bit digital camera, software that can distinguish between colony size, shape and color and sixteen separately indexable pins. The colonies can be deposited into 96- or 384-well microtiter plates containing liquid or solid media or a standard size (86 mm x 128 mm) rectangular petri dish with solid media. The colony-picking pins can be cleaned and sterilized with up to 3 user-selectable wash solutions, a sonicator bath and a heat sterilizer. The VersArray Colony Picker and Arrayer can be equipped with a 96- or 384-pin replicator head, which can be shifted a few millimeters so that the target agar plate can accept multiples of 96 or 384 colonies (restricted by the standard plate size and expected colony size after growth). Up to two additional trays with 10 standard size plates each (or 4 standard size plates and one 240 mm x 240 mm plate) can be stored on an adjacent elevator and moved into place once the two trays on the main platform are processed. A barcode reader is used to keep track of the contents of each plate. Finally, a four channel 0.2 µl - 10 µl electronic pipettor can be attached to transfer liquids or cultures, if neccessary. Setting up a colony picking or replicating protocol is assisted by user-friendly software which employs graphics to ease the complexity of the instructions to be issued to the robot.

The Fisher refrigerated incubators are used for the growth of microbial cultures on solid (or in liquid) media. They have five removable shelves and one storage basket, with six molded shelves on the door, for a total storage area of 2.4 square meters (26 square feet). The incubation temperature can be set from -10° C to 60° C, with a temperature uniformity of +/- 0.5° C and a constancy of +/- 0.2° C.

The Innova 4430 Incubator Shakers are used for the growth of microbial cultures in liquid media. They are extremely flexible in that the operating temperature ranges from 15° C below ambient (4° C being the minimum) to 80° C and they can accomodate a wide variety of flasks (up to 60 x 125 ml, 40 x 250 ml, 12 x 500 ml, 15 x 1 liter or 6 x 2 liter flasks) or microtiter plates (15 clamps, stackable up to 8 shallow-well or 3 deep-well plates each). Users can also attach additional or alternate clamps to the universal platforms.

The Forma Biological Safety Cabinet is a laminar airflow workstation used for handling low-to- moderate risk organisms (Biosafety levels 1, 2, or 3). Forty percent of the air in the cabinet is discharged through an exhaust HEPA filter and the remainder is recirculated into the cabinet. The stainless steel work area measures 124.5 cm x 57.7 cm, with a height clearance of 72.1 cm.

The shaker’s 24 in. x 36 in. platform can handle a maximum of 75 x 25 ml flasks, or 12 x 2.8 L flasks, or 8 X 6 L flasks. Up to a maximum of 400 RPM can be used with this platform. The control panel allows for easy programming. These shakers can be found in the CSFG environmental rooms and are operated at 22° C and 30° C.

This website was created by Aleks Spurmanis