CapitalBio Corporation, a leading developer and manufacturer of microarray systems, is introducing its microarray instruments to the US market. CapitalBio has signed on Core Life Sciences as its newest distributor to market and sell its range of microarray spotters, scanners, substrates, and reagents in the United States.
CapitalBio has developed a microarray platform that stands apart from other manufacturers’ systems in the versatility, precision, and durability offered at its particular price point. CapitalBio’s microarrayers offer both contact and proprietary non-contact array printing capabilities, available three year extended warranties, with print repeatability equal to or better than competing arrayers—but at a fraction of the competition’s price.
CapitalBio’s line of microarrayers includes high, medium, and low throughput arrayers. The SmartArrayer 136 is CapitalBio’s highest throughput arrayer with a capacity of 136 microarray slides or 16 96-well plates. The SmartArrayer comes equipped with precise, high speed mechanics, with print repeatability at ±3 μm and print head velocity at 300 mm/sec. The Personalarrayer 16, CapitalBio’s benchtop microarrayer, has a capacity of 16 microarray slides or two 96-well plates and a print repeatability of less than 10 μm.
Both CapitalBio’s SmartArrayer and PersonalArrayer instruments feature CapitalBio’s proprietary Microdispense non-contact array printing technology, which uses an advanced pneumatic system. Other non-contact dispensing microarrayers typically use one syringe pump per dispensing channel. This design means increased maintenance costs as well as higher incremental costs for adding more channels, because each additional channel requires another syringe pump. CapitalBio’s Microdispense technology, on the other hand, allows for expansion to up to 4 channels (in the SmartArrayer platform) without requiring any additional compressors or pumps. (Only the additional print heads need to be added and a small manifold changed).
Given the viscosity of protein samples, Microdispense technology is best suited for protein array production, while contact printing is best suited for oligonucleotide arrays.
Filed Under: Drug Discovery
