Electric robot used to pick stem cells

Farnborough-based paa (Peak Analysis & Automation), in conjunction with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has developed automate.it pixcell, a flexible robotic system for precise detection, isolation and picking of part or whole stem cell colonies from Petri dishes. It then transfers the colonies to microtiter plates ready for further development.

The robot at the heart of the pixcell is the Mitsubishi Electric RP-Series, which was designed specifically for micro-handling. It operates with a placement accuracy of 0.005mm or one-tenth the width of a human hair, with a picking cycle time of less than 0.5 seconds.

The robot is very compact, so fits comfortably within the cabinet. It is usually used for precision manufacturing purposes, such as assembling watches, mobile phones and hearing aids or for populating printed circuit boards with semiconductors. However it is designed to be flexible and once fitted with a suitable working head can be used in an almost infinite range of micro-positioning applications.