Quick Guide: What is a Liquid Handling Robot?

Are you considering automating your workflow, but unsure of what a liquid handling robot is and how it can be used?

If you have ever asked yourself, “what is a liquid handling robot”, then please read on.

What a Liquid Handling Robot is

A liquid handling robot is simply a pipetting robot that handles all your liquid for you, allowing you to focus on other things and altogether increase your throughput.

There are different robots on the market with different features to accommodate laboratories of all shapes and sizes. Some are smaller stand-alone units that fit well into small laboratories, and some are large systems suited for labs with a large throughput.

Likewise, some are designed to be user-friendly and flexible, and some are more rigid and designed to run the same protocol for years. Both types have their own merit – the former is often preferred in smaller labs while the latter is used in large and less versatile labs.

Some robots integrate with devices such as temperature controllers, shakers, and magnetic decks. This is helpful and allows you to pipette the liquid directly to and from the device without manually adjusting the labware.

Fully automated workstations will likely set the standard for the lab of the future, and most liquid handling robots will easily fit into the setup with e.g., robotic arms to increase walk-away time and make best use of the equipment you have already invested in.

What you can use a Liquid Handling Robot for

Most laboratories across the world are beginning to automate with the main market segment being biotechnology- and pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, diagnostics laboratories & CROs, and research- and academic institutes.

Liquid handling robots can play a key role in many different workflows. Some of the applications that they typically cover are:

• PCR and qPCR
• Next Generation Sequencing
• ELISA sample preparation
• Normalization
• Dilution (serial, plate-to-plate etc.)
• Reformatting, cherry picking, transferring
• Sample aliquoting
• Microplate filing

All of these have a large amount of pipetting tasks that can easily be carried out by a pipetting robot. We typically recommend automation if you have more than one time-consuming liquid handling task per week.

Our liquid handling robot

Hopefully this has gotten you closer to answering the question “what is a liquid handling robot”. To get more specific, we would like to introduce you to our solution.

We want to help you transition from manual to automated pipetting as easily as possible, which is why we have developed the pipetting robot, flowbot® ONE.

flowbot® ONE is a plug and play solution with high precision and flexibility. Whenever a procedure changes in your lab there are no need for complicated programming and you can easily integrate it with various devices such as temperature controllers, shakers, and magnetic decks.

This is ideal for laboratories that are taking their first steps towards automation, and it fits easily into labs of all shapes and sized.

With its intuitive user interface, everyone can learn to use it in just one hour. In fact, with flowbot® ONE you can start automating your liquid handling on the day of delivery.

If you want to know more, our specialists are standing by to answer your questions or give you a free demo.