Max Planck Cryogenic Grinder and Feeder System
In 2007 Labman Automation installed and commissioned a unique system for cryogenically grinding and then feeding milligram amounts of plant material into sample vials ready for analysis. The system is designed to operate for 24 hours a day. The system is loaded with vials containing plant material and steel balls for grinding. Inside a -70°C freezer a robot loads the sample vials into stations designed to grind the sample and then pierce a hole in the vial, which is then used for feeding powder. The feeding station is used to dispense milligram amounts of the sample into Micronic tubes for downstream analysis (enzyme, nucleic acid, yeast and protein extraction).
Main Features
- Automatically grind and aliquot plant material to a specified number of targets
- Feed the sample from a single source to multiple target tubes
- 96 input samples and 580 output sample vials
- -70°C dry air refrigeration to ensure low frost build up
- Multiple format data import and export (csv, excel etc)
- Dispensing accuracy ±4mg
Research
This robot, named 'Frosty' by its operators, is continually generating new research:On Arabidopsis:
Bieniawska Z, Espinoza C, Schlereth A, Sulpice R, Hincha DK, Hannah MA. (2008). Disruption of the Arabidopsis circadian clock is responsible for extensive variation in the cold-responsive transcriptome. Plant Physiology 147: 263-79.
On potato tubers:
Hoehenwarter W, van Dongen JT, Wienkoop S., Steinfath M., Hummel J., Erban A, Sulpice R, Regierer B, Kopka J, Geigenberger P, Weckwerth W. (2008) A rapid approach for phenotype-screening and database independent detection of cSNP/protein polymorphism using mass accuracy precursor alignment. Proteomics 8: DOI 10.1002/pmic.200701047
