Tecan’s Cavro® Air Displacement Pipettor proves ideal for new microbiology application.

The ease of integration of Tecan’s Cavro® Air Displacement Pipettor (ADP) has helped French microbiological instrument manufacturer i2a to develop PRELUD®, an automated pre-analytical instrument for the inoculation of culture plates and preparation of agar susceptibility tests.

Project manager Michel Roch explained: “When we were developing PRELUD, the integration of a liquid handling system for streaking Petri dishes was essential. Instead of trying to develop our own liquid handling system, it made sense to obtain this type of OEM component from a company with a good reputation that is an expert in the field, since these components have already been evaluated and certified, with proven accuracy.”

“We needed something very light and easy to use, and that was capable of pipetting liquid volumes ranging from microliters to milliliters. The Cavro ADP was easy to integrate because it operates mechanically without the use of liquids, and it allows precision liquid dispensing. The tip ejector was another highly useful function; we use Tecan’s disposable tips and simply change between 10 µl, 200 µl and 1 ml tips according to our needs.

We were able to integrate the Cavro ADP into PRELUD very quickly and, within two days, we could handle liquids. The reproducibility, precision and accuracy of the Cavro ADP is good enough for our microbiology application without the need for any further tests or trials.”