Don Whitley Scientific have a new product included in their product range. AutoZONE, manufactured by Synbiosis, is an automatic zone analysing system that saves time and money for antibiotic and vaccine manufacturers AutoZONE consists of a computer controlled, high-resolution CCD camera on an automated gantry system. It can read a 64-zone bioassay plate in just 70 seconds - around 25 times faster than by manual analysis. The camera automatically moves from zone to zone rapidly reading and recording zone diameters with a +/- 0.01mm degree of accuracy. Also, the average diameter measurement is based on the entire zone area, making the results more precise than those taken from manual single or double diameter measurements.

Users can create and recall automatic scanning patterns for different plate configurations, AutoZONE is ideal for applications including multi-zone bioassay plate analysis (commonly 36 and 64 zone plates) and Single Radial Immunodiffusion assay plates. The images are recorded by GLP compliant software, which eliminates any keying or scanning errors when data is transferred. The information is saved to hard disc for secure archiving or to generate professional reports for audit by regulatory agencies.

Sales Director, Steve Robertson, has been instrumental in handling the inclusion of this product in the Don Whitley Scientific range. He commented: "AutoZONE automates what can be a very labour-intensive process. In the time it takes a scientist to manually measure one bioassay plate, AutoZONE enables a laboratory to analyse 25 plates and produce extremely accurate results. We are confident that this product will significantly increase productivity for any antibiotic or vaccine manufacturer."