omation mbers - Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening

WP023
Gunther Kolb
Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH
Chemical Process Technology
Carl-Zeiss-Str. 15-20
Mainz, 55129 Germany
kolb@imm-mainz.de
203
Co-Author(s)
Ines Frese, Volker Hessel, Holger Löwe,
David Tiemann, and Ioan M. Ciumasu,
Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH
Petra M. Krämer, TU München, Wissenschaftszentrum
Weihenstephan
An Automated, Portable Immunochemical Flow Injection System for On-Site Analysis of
Environmentally Hazardous Chemicals
The instrument presented here applies an immunochemical flow injection procedure, which uses
chemiluminescence as detection principle. Analysis is performed automatically. In the final stage of the
development, the operator only needs to insert the chip into the instrument, inject the sample into the chip sample
reservoir, and to push the start button. The heart of the instrument is a micro-structured analysis cell made of a
polymer (PMMA) which is covered with gold. On the gold surface the antibodies of the immunochemical reaction
are immobilised. Both the analysis cell, a depot for the enzyme and the sample reservoir are incorporated into a
removable chip. The chip is connected to the analysis instrument and may be regenerated up to 50 times after
use. The analysis instrument developed by IMM is composed of a polymer plate carrying the micro-channels,
valves and a step-motor driven syringe, which transports the various working media through the instrument.
The measurements are temperature dependent and therefore the field version of the instrument and the liquid
tanks are air-conditioned. The instrument is controlled by a low-power embedded PC via a user-friendly screen
mask and touch-screen. Six – eight hours of operation independent from the power grid is possible due to two
accumulators supplying the system. First tests of the portable field instrument revealed successful determination of
Trinitrotoluene (TNT) standards from 0.01 to 10 µg/l. This suggests that a screening of samples for TNT is possible
in this concentration range. The instrument is currently tested under field conditions on a TNT-contaminated site.
WP024
Kristopher Kopacz
Dyax Corporation
Automation
300 Technology Square
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
kkopacz@dyax.com
Co-Author(s)
Qi-Long Wu
Janja Cosic
David Buckler
Multiple Parallel Purification of Fab Fragments Discovered Using Dyax Corp’s Phage Display
Antibody Libraries
Through phage display technology, individual lead biomolecules that bind with high affinity and specificity to
specific molecular targets are selected from highly diverse phage display libraries. Various biomolecular scaffolds
have been successfully used in phage display, including antibody, peptide, and protease inhibitor frameworks.
In this approach for ligand discovery, combinatorial variation is introduced at specific binding regions of the
display scaffold. Library members with the desired binding affinity and specificity can be selected through a
panning process, and the amino acid sequence of the display molecule conferring the desired properties can be
determined by DNA sequencing of the isolated phage clones. After individual phage clones are identified, a key
step in validating the desired binding properties for isolated clones is to express and purify the display protein
to allow direct binding measurements with the target molecule. This poster will describe methods and results
for high throughput soluble Fab fragment production using Dyax’s antibody discovery technology platform. Fab
DNA cassettes recovered from phage clones are reformatted into Fab expression vectors to produce soluble Fab
fragments at levels of 2 – 20 mg/L. These soluble Fab fragments include affinity tags that can be used for efficient
multiple parallel purification.
POSTER ABSTRACTS