As a part of biofoundry under establishment, bioengineering lab received its very own growth profiler. The state-of-the-art machine allows high throughput screening of microbial strains and growth media on µL scale. The Head of Automation Juliano Sabedotti de Biaggi described that the growth profiler can fit up to ten autoclavable 96-well microtiter plates, allowing monitoring 960 conditions at once. “However, usually the tests are conducted in triplicates which means monitoring of 320 strains or growth medias in parallel. The advantage of the microplates are that they can be covered with a lid, allowing control of gas exchange and evaporation. The machine is complemented with a camera which performs online optical density measurements, therefore obsoleting the need to measure each sample individually and manually.” With as many as 960 samples we are relieved to have this automated function!
The machine is a valuable asset for bioengineering laboratory as it offers the possibility of broader screening of microbial strains. Therefore microbial strains with different mutations can be screened at once, broadening the possibility to find the ones with best characteristics.
The growth profiler was sourced under DigiBio joint project with TalTech, University of Tartu and Danish Technical University, which received 15 million € from European Union and 15 million € from Estonian government.
