Sample Processing: Biotech Meets New Concentrator Range

At Biotechnica 2005 in Hannover, Germany, Barnstead Genevac announced that it will show its latest innovative products for safely concentrating or drying biological samples in a variety of formats including tubes, vials and microplates.

Visitors were able to review the recently introduced miVac range of affordable centrifugal sample concentrators. Benchmarked to provide best-of-class performance in all aspects the miVac range allow scientists working with DNA, RNA, peptides, oligonucleotides and proteins to safely and swiftly concentrate or dry their samples. The miVac range of concentrators feature capacity from six to twelve stacked shallow-well microplates or 64 to 200 micro centrifuge tubes of 1.5ml size. Special methods for drying aqueous and alcohol-based samples are included in all the miVac models.

Also on display will be the miVac Speed Trap - a new unique design of refrigerated solvent condenser for vacuum concentrators. The Speed Trap has been designed to considerably improve the performance of any vacuum concentration system by condensing vapours back to liquid, helping to pull a vacuum and speeding up the concentration process considerably.

Genevac will also show its popular EZ-2 Personal Evaporator system. The EZ-2 now accommodates a wide selection of sample holders enabling evaporation from most common sample container formats including round-bottom flasks up to 500ml, tubes up to 160mm long, custom reaction blocks and shallow or deep-well microplates. To meet the need of the many pharmaceutical and biotech companies switching their compound generation programmes from serial chemistry to parallel synthesis, the EZ-2 is also able to take tubes, flasks and vials directly from the synthesis process, eliminating a manual handling step, increasing recoveries and removing the chance of cross contamination.