Tecan Fluent Mix, Pierce Workstation

Tecan has launched the Fluent Mix and Pierce Workstation to provide end-to-end automation for whole-blood pipetting in clinical environments. The new instrument configuration is intended to standardize preanalytical sample handling and mixing, and is part of an ongoing collaboration with Qiagen to optimize sample preparation for latent tuberculosis testing with Qiagen's QuantiFeron-TB Gold Plus assay.

The automated workflow features a Flexible Channel Arm equipped with Tecan Piercing Tips to aliquot whole blood samples directly from vacuum blood collection tubes or septum-capped tubes without the need for manual lid removal. This reduces the risk of laboratory staff coming into contact with infectious materials, and saves valuable time when performing tube-to-tube or tube-to-plate transfers and whole-blood assays. The workstation also features the newly developed Tecan Tube Rotator, which provides 360-degree tube mixing to maintain whole blood samples in suspension without hemolysis, and includes barcode scanning for both primary and secondary tubes to ensure full process traceability for clinical settings, Tecan said.