Sample Retrieval

Systems Overview

I/O Station

The I/O Station serves as the main output location for sample delivery and provides the user with the ability to quickly add and remove samples in a variety of storage formats at any time. Trays to be removed are loaded starting in the lowest available location of the I/O Station’s shelves and proceeding to the top location. The topmost shelf location is reserved for input actions only, allowing the operator to input a single tray at any time during the unload process. Temperature and humidity are controlled within the module to be dry and near room temperature.

Tube, Vial, and Plate Selector Stations

The Universal Store offers the industry’s leading cherry picking rates for tubes, vials, and plates. This high-speed retrieval of containers is achieved due to NEXUS’ unique system design that allows multiple, simultaneous container picking, look ahead tray positioning, and tray-to-select-station delivery. Cherry picking is performed by dedicated workstations that are specifically designed for a particular container type (Tube Selector, Vial Selector, and Plate Selector). This design philosophy ensures a high level of reliability and performance. In operation, the shuttle within the storage unit will transfer a storage tray to an appropriate module for processing. The modules are connected to the same atmospheric conditions as the storage system so samples are not unnecessarily defrosted or exposed.

The Tube and Vial Selectors can simultaneously pick, place, and rearrange individual tubes or vials to create new racks which contain only requested compounds in user defined formats (96-well, 88-well, etc.). The Selectors have the throughput to rapidly create large subsets of the total library or to quickly retrieve small sets of follow-up samples. The Selectors can handle multiple jobs, with an automatic look-ahead cache to save time and steps.

With independent tube, vial, and plate selectors, multiple container types can be picked at the same time to optimize overall throughput needs.

Bridge Stations

Storage units are built and installed independently of each other. Customers have the flexibility to choose the capacity that best meets their expansion requirements. Additional storage units can be added at any time with very little disturbance to existing systems. A Bridge Station acts as the physical interface between storage systems, transferring tubes, plates, or vials to the cherry picker or I/O defrosting workstations. Multiple storage units and Bridge Stations can share any number of cherry picking and I/O defrosting workstations. Regardless of the number of storage units, the Universal Store appears to the user as a single storage system.