Simplifying Pipetting Without Sacrificing Accuracy
Replacing multiple pipettes with one device reduces clutter and workflow complexity.
Researchers are often tasked to work with smaller sample volumes while balancing pressure to generate reliable, standardized data across multiple users, instruments, and sites. At the same time, laboratories face ongoing constraints around bench space, equipment costs, and workflow complexity.
Pipetting technologies are evolving in response to these demands, with greater focus on reducing variability, improving ergonomics, and streamlining laboratory operations. By minimizing variability at both low and high volumes while simplifying day-to-day workflows, innovations like the DeNovix Squid™ Full Range Pipette are helping laboratories maintain accuracy without adding operational complexity.
Technology Networks recently spoke with Andrew Jones, market development manager at DeNovix, to learn more about the challenges associated with maintaining accuracy across a wide volume range, the benefits of simplifying pipetting workflows, and how laboratories can improve efficiency while reducing operational burden.
How is the increasing emphasis on reproducibility and standardization reshaping expectations for core laboratory tools like liquid handling devices?
Andrew W. Jones (AWJ):
This is in part dependent on the type of lab. In diagnostics labs and R&D settings, regulatory frameworks strictly regulate the standards that must be adhered to. In the life sciences, reproducibility and standardization have become increasingly important factors as the cost and scale of downstream applications has increased. Experiments have also moved to smaller sample and assay volumes, increasing the requirement for accuracy at micro volumes.
KP:
What does it mean for laboratory workflow design when a single pipette can reliably replace an entire set spanning 1–1000 µL?
AWJ:
The Squid Full Range Pipette replaces a full rack of traditional pipettes. In terms of workflow, having a single Squid Pipette compared to four or five other pipettes reduces clutter and the need to change pipettes multiple times during a single assay setup. Two preset volumes per pipetting mode can be easily accessed and saved for a particular assay. This reduces the chance of error, improves speed and ergonomics
Switching to a single pipette also means that space in busy shared areas and flow hoods is not taken up by racks of pipettes and tips, reducing clutter and improving the workflow in busy environments.
KP:
How important is it that a device maintains both accuracy and precision at the extreme low end where traditional pipettes typically show higher variability?
AWJ:
Having confidence in the accuracy and precision of your pipettes across their range is a critical factor when selecting a pipette. While traditional pipettes often show higher variability at their lower limits, the Squid pipette uses microvolume motor control to ensure it meets rigorous ISO 8655 standards across its entire range. When using traditional pipettes, you inevitably work with volumes at the extremes of the pipette range, where errors are higher. These peaks in error are eliminated with the Squid Pipette, which displays a consistently low error.
KP:
How does equipment consolidation help address rising costs and space constraints in laboratories?
AWJ:
The ability to replace a rack of up to five pipettes with a single device will be attractive to most labs and researchers. We have already discussed workflow advantages and the high performance of the device, but Squid also makes a significant financial impact on labs.
In addition to saving money on the initial purchase, having fewer pipettes in a lab to service, calibrate, and manage both simplifies processes and reduces ongoing costs associated with servicing.
The introduction to this interview includes text that has been created with the assistance of generative AI and has undergone editorial review before publishing. Technology Networks' AI policy can be found here.
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