Case Studies
ARTEL has worked closely with customers to create a series of valuable case studies. These case studies show how customers have deployed ARTEL verification systems and integrated ARTEL expertise within their organizations.
Contract Laboratory Improves Liquid Handling Quality Assurance
Laboratory Challenge
For LINCO Diagnostic Services, a contract laboratory specializing in ligand binding assays, quality assurance is critical. Performing functions such as bioanalytical services and clinical trials for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, LINCO is under intense and continual scrutiny by its clients and the FDA.
One of the critical processes reviewed by the laboratory’s clients is its pipette calibration procedures. The laboratory must demonstrate that the results it delivers are accurate and that its equipment works to specification.
LINCO previously relied on gravimetric methods for pipette calibration, verifying volume using analytical balances and manually calculating and recording the results. However, this procedure was lengthy, tedious, and prone to human error. It was also highly volatile, requiring a controlled environment absent of static, vibration, and temperature variations for proper function.
Solution
“We decided to incorporate the PCS in our laboratory to obtain higher degrees of accuracy and efficiency in our calibration procedures,” said Sheba Young, lead laboratory technician at LINCO. “We were especially impressed that the PCS was automatic.”
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The PCS’s ease-of-use and speed allow LINCO to calibrate its pipettes in half the time that gravimetric methods require, and this enables more frequent calibration. And because the PCS calculates and records calibration results automatically, transcription errors are eliminated. Liquid handling instrumentation performance is instantaneously verified and supporting documentation can be printed with the touch of a button, helping LINCO prepare for client and FDA audits.
The immediacy of the PCS’s data output also allows LINCO to use it as a training tool. The pipetting technique of new hires can be tested and improved immediately with minimal disruption to the laboratory.
Results
The PCS allows LINCO to more frequently and easily calibrate its pipettes and train its technicians. This has resulted in greater confidence in assay results, increased efficiency, and a deepening of client trust.
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No Room for Error in Drug Discovery Laboratory
Laboratory Challenge
The drug discovery process often starts in a High-Throughput Screening (HTS) laboratory. Screening campaigns typically use a number of automated liquid handlers to dispense a variety of solutions and run assays with small amounts of compounds in high concentrations. Volumes inaccurate by microliters can significantly alter assay results. For accurate and precise data, these laboratories must verify that all instrumentation is dispensing uniformly, and equipment validation is critical.
The HTS laboratory at a biopharmaceutical company involved in molecular and cellular research used a calibration method based on tartrazine dye for liquid handling quality assurance. This process was tedious and time consuming, requiring the production of calibration curves before each validation. In addition, data was stored on the individual computers of the technicians performing the calibration, hindering systematic and consistent collection of reproducible data.
Solution
To bring efficiency and standardization to its HTS laboratory’s liquid handling operations, the company implemented the ARTEL MVS. Rapid and robust, the MVS enables the laboratory to optimize the volume transfer performance of its automated liquid handlers and streamline calibration and documentation processes.
The MVS also allows the laboratory to verify that the same amount of liquid is being transferred and that its results are comparable with each liquid handler, so that one microliter from one instrument is the same as one microliter from another, even when those two devices are measured in different labs or on different days.
As opposed to the time-consuming tartrazine method, requiring about two hours per system calibration, the MVS performs measurements in less than ten minutes. This rapid volume verification facilitates frequent calibration without diminishing productivity.
Results
The MVS has helped this HTS laboratory discover that what technicians thought were the same target volumes on different systems were actually different. With its new robust liquid handling quality assurance program, the laboratory continues to reap the speed and efficiency-enhancing benefits of its automated liquid handlers without second-guessing quality.
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Laboratory Equipment Vendor Validates Technology with ARTEL MVS
Laboratory Challenge
When CerionX Inc. introduced its new TipCharger™ System to enhance automated laboratory processes, it sought a method able to easily validate and demonstrate the effectiveness of its new technology. The TipCharger generates an atmospheric plasma to clean and sterilize pipette tips used in automated liquid handling environments. The product enables significant reductions in automated liquid handling operating costs posed by pipette tips, and lessens timelines associated with pipette tip wash protocols.
To validate the TipCharger, CerionX required a standard method for confirming pipetting accuracy and precision for tips cleaned with its system. Traditional liquid handling calibration methods such as gravimetry or fluorescence are difficult to administer accurately, and results are difficult to compare.
CerionX wanted a method to measure TipCharger performance in standard terms across liquid handlers and provide results that could be integrated with its customers' data.
Solution
To validate the TipCharger System, CerionX chose the ARTEL MVS. With the MVS, CerionX is able to measure – and prove – the consistent accuracy and precision of volume transfer steps after liquid handler tips are exposed to plasma. The MVS is the only standardized, commercially available technology capable of accurate, precise, and traceable measurement of delivered liquid volumes from automated liquid handlers.
"The MVS is effective for us because it is standardized and foolproof - everything from the bar coding to the fact that samples are stable and ready for use," said Geoffrey Schwartz, Director of Applications, CerionX. "It is a straightforward verification method for us internally as well as for our customers."
The MVS provides peace of mind through a third-party reputation: "This solution provides us with non-subjective data that builds credibility with our customers. Our plasma-based cleaning method is highly effective with solid data behind it – that's the combination our customers need to fully take advantage of their automated environments."
Many leading biotechnology companies use the ARTEL MVS to certify the volume transfer performance of their many liquid handling instrument types. "The MVS is an industry standard so our customers know they are comparing apples-to-apples when they see our results," said Schwartz.
Results
By using the ARTEL MVS to validate the performance of liquid handlers after using TipCharger, CerionX is able to demonstrate the effectiveness of its product. Automated laboratories benefit from a proven technology that can speed their cleaning processes, helping them better maintain the momentum of drug development, better allocate resources, and compete more effectively.
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LHQA in Water Quality Laboratory: Helping Americans Sip Safely
Laboratory Challenge
For the privilege of safe sipping in the United States, thanks are owed to water quality laboratories, tasked with analyzing water samples for a variety of harmful substances. Any errors in testing can result in the release of contaminated water to the public. Therefore, water quality laboratories are tightly regulated by federal and state authorities.
Quality control is mandated for critical laboratory processes, and this includes pipette calibration. Performing a large number of volume-dependent contaminant identification tests, water quality laboratories must implement measures to verify the accuracy and precision of its liquid delivery instruments.
One state water quality laboratory was using gravimetry to calibrate its liquid handling devices. However, gravimetric calibration is time consuming and easily affected by environmental conditions such as humidity, air flow, and temperature. Challenged by the need to perform real-time water quality monitoring and the rapid pace of sample testing, with up to 475,000 analyses of 40,000 samples conducted each year, the laboratory realized that gravimetric calibration was impeding laboratory efficiency.
Solution
This water quality laboratory switched to the ARTEL PCS for quicker and more accurate assurance of pipette performance. The PCS can verify minute volumes with a high degree of accuracy, while providing automated verification and documentation of calibration results to meet federal and state standards.
The PCS performs a 10-point calibration of low volume pipettes in less than four minutes, as compared to gravimetric methods requiring 15 to 60 minutes. This time-savings encourages more frequent pipette calibration, which helps the laboratory ensure more consistent and reliable pipetting.
And this helps the laboratory meet Drinking Water Laboratory Certification requirements, required by the EPA for all facilities analyzing public water supplies.
Results
The PCS has enhanced the water quality laboratory’s ability to confirm the purity of the public’s drinking water. The reduction in required calibration time has resulted in better use of the laboratory’s overhead and personnel, which can be reallocated to important testing processes. In addition, the added convenience makes more frequent calibration, and thereby more reliable test outcomes, a viable option.
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