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Roche and Caliper Offer Integrated High-Throughput Solution with the LightCycler® 480 Instrument
Roche Diagnostics and Caliper Life Sciences, Inc. have announced a joint product offering that combines Caliper's Twister® II Microplate Handler and Roche's LightCycler® 480 Real-Time PCR system.
The integrated product offering can provide customers with a solution for laboratories to complete high-throughput screening with increased automation capability.
The two companies have also agreed to co-market and promote the joint solution into the life science research market.
"We continuously strive to provide our customers with proven technology that simplifies processes within the lab without compromising accuracy and precision," said Manfred Baier, Head of Roche Applied Science, a business area of Roche Diagnostics.
"Caliper's Twister II is the industry standard for plate and tip loading. Our customers have confidence in this technology so it was a natural fit to work with Caliper to offer an integrated solution."
The Twister II is a plug-and-play bench-top plate handler with a walk-away capacity to stack and load up to 200 standard microplates. When integrated with Roche's LightCycler® 480 system, a multiwell, plate-based real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis platform, the system can double the throughput screening capacity for the detection of nucleic acids and genotyping.
Caliper's iLink Pro automation software can provide the built-in adapter necessary to attach multiple LightCycler® 480 instruments to the Twister II for throughput screening in real-time PCR analysis. Together, the Twister II and LightCycler® 480 instrument can eliminate the need for frequent manual re-loading.
"Researchers are constantly faced with improving workflow and automating tasks while maximizing the benefit gained by implementing technologies in the lab," said Jean-Louis Rufener, Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and Sales, Caliper Life Sciences. "We teamed with Roche to meet this challenge and provide laboratories with proven technologies, from industry leaders, at competitive prices."
