Eskitis Institute Enhanced by Compound Processing Solution

The Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies at Griffith University has chosen TTP LabTech’s comPOUND^® storage modules and Velocity11’s BioCel^® automation system to form the core of their Queensland Compound Library (QCL) facility at Brisbane, Australia.

The deal involves two comPOUND stores and a comPANION 1-2-4 remote delivery system integrated with a Velocity11 BioCel.

This will give the QCL a fully automated sample processing system for taking pure compounds and natural product extracts from frozen storage into high throughput, high content or phenotypic screening.

The guiding principle of the QCL is to facilitate collaboration between Australasian chemists and biologists, and add value to the already excellent basic medical research, synthetic organic chemistry and natural product expertise.

Chemists can deposit compounds into a central repository thereby allowing biologists access to a unique suite of compounds in screen ready microtitre plates.

A marriage between chemistry and biology following screening provides the opportunity to pursue an academic investigation or commercial product. 

Importantly, the QCL does not lay claim to any IP owned or generated by users of the facility. 

"We are committed to providing high quality compound logistic services and are confident the comPOUND/BioCel combination will help us achieve our goals," Dr David Camp, Director of the QCL, said.

"We feel the unique IP model, which lies somewhere between industry’s zealous protection and the NIH placing all biological data in the public domain, is better suited to the current Australasian need."

"The QCL model allows synergies to develop and mature into projects that are prosecuted in a way best suited to the collaboration."

Designed as a modular storage system to fit in any standard laboratory, TTP LabTech's comPOUND^® offers a method of cherry-picking microtubes from any location within a sample library.

Each comPOUND module is self-contained and can store 100,000 microtubes in a hermetic, dry and inert environment at -20°C. Multiple comPOUND modules are linked to provide expandable library storage capacity.

Modules are connected in parallel so tubes in different modules can be accessed simultaneously, which means that sample processing actually gets faster as the library grows.

Velocity11’s BioCel^® Automation System is designed to deliver the plate-processing functionality of much larger systems in an efficient package optimized for speed.

The system's real-time scheduler supports multiple plate formats and labware, multiple protocols, and linear and parallel process flows, while the software architecture accommodates expansion of the system to include additional modules and access to third party devices.