October 1, 2012 (Vol. 32, No. 17)
Dedicated To Making Our World a Better Place by Delivering Innovative Laboratory Automation
Douglas Scientific is dedicated to making our world a better place by delivering innovative laboratory automation. Our vision is to see Array Tape™ become a ubiquitous media for medium- and high-throughput laboratory processing, driving more data at a lower cost. “The demand for genomic research and discovery is escalating at breakneck speed, and we’re poised to support it at Douglas Scientific. With Array Tape, we’ve enabled a 10-fold increase in laboratory screen throughput, while affecting an 80-90% cost reduction,” says Dan Malmstrom President of Douglas Scientific. “That’s a timely and disruptive paradigm shift to address pressing global challenges.”
Douglas Scientific began as a division of Douglas Machine, Inc. in 2009, and was incorporated as a wholly owned company in 2010. The company provides patented Array Tape automation that enables laboratories around the world to rapidly process millions of samples per day.
Markets Served
Agricultural biotechnology companies are at the forefront of adopting new high-throughput technologies. They use Array Tape for SNP genotyping to improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of molecular plant breeding and product development.
Array Tape helps agricultural biotechnology companies quickly respond to worldwide challenges including exponential population growth, changing weather patterns, and severe food shortages. “Food security is a major challenge in this world. By partnering with the best scientists, we know we can be part of the change that will feed a growing population and ultimately save millions of lives,” says Malmstrom.
Douglas Scientific’s Array Tape platform has also been well received in human diagnostics, CROs and more. In just three short years, over 100 instruments have been deployed in laboratories worldwide. Douglas Scientific is optimizing the platform for additional applications in pharmaceutical, animal health, and other bioscience markets using high-throughput screening. “When you have a flexible platform that is chemistry agnostic and reduces cost per data point, you begin to enable scientific discovery at a staggering pace,” says Craig McLain, vice president, business operations, “Homogeneous ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) processing and qPCR in Array Tape will revolutionize labs around the globe.”
Upcoming product launches open the door for high-throughput inline DNA extraction, purification, and multiplexing in Array Tape.
Capabilities
The Array Tape platform, manufactured and sold by Douglas Scientific, provides an inline, modular, and highly automated system. Array Tape is a thin and flexible microplate replacement, serially embossed with reaction wells. Array Tape is available in standard (384- and 96-well) formats and custom well sizes and geometries. The equivalent of 200 microplates (384-well array) are spooled onto a single compact reel. Unique barcodes before and after each array ensure accurate identification of individual samples during and after processing. The continuous reel-to-reel process flow is achieved with indexing holes that run along the edge of the Array Tape, accurately positioning and continuously feeding reaction wells through the Nexar (liquid-handling and assay processing system). Up to three reels of Array Tape then move from the Nexar to the Soellex™, a large batch thermal cycling of up to 230,000 samples in a single process run. The Araya, a fluorescent detection instrument, scans each 384-well array in 28 seconds. From there, the Intellics™ software system allows seamless analysis and integration of data. Intellics provides a web-based dashboard for instrument monitoring from either an intranet site or through a secure internet site anywhere in the world.
The Array Tape platform virtually eliminates manual handling and complex robotics required by microplate-based platforms. The flexible nature of the Nexar allows for inline incubation and detection modules with a variety of applications including homogeneous ELISA and qPCR processing resulting in true walk-away automation, laboratory efficiency, and freeing laboratory personnel for other work. Researchers confirm Array Tape’s benefits when compared to microplate-based technology. On average, SNP genotyping laboratories are able to increase throughput to 400 arrays (384-well format) per system in an eight-hour day. Specifically, laboratories report reagent dispense and fluorescent reading are twice as fast in the Nexar and Araya instruments compared to microplate-based platforms. Contact Douglas Scientific for more information or visit our website: www.DouglasScientific.com.
Douglas Scientific
3600 Minnesota Street Alexandria, MN 56308
Phone: 320.762.6888
Website: www.DouglasScientific.com
Date Founded: 2009
Number of Employees: 70
