Major biological resource centre increases cell line supply capacity with TAP’s automated cryovial filling system

The Automation Partnership (TAP), world leader in the design and development of innovative automation for life science applications announced its Fill-It™, benchtop automated dispensing system, is being used at one of the world's largest biological resource centres to improve the precision of filling and to significantly reduce the time required to dispense cells into large numbers of cryovials.

Scientists at the cell culture centre in Europe have used Fill-It since 2008 to dispense frozen cells in a consistent volume into stock cryovial for both cell banking and assay ready drug discovery applications. They chose Fill-It because their validation studies showed it is the most efficient way to uncap, dispense cells and recap a large batch of screw-cap 24 Nunc cryovials, while maintaining aseptic conditions.

A Project Manager, at the cell culture centre explained: "A drug discovery company asked us to produce assay-ready cells, which meant going from producing two to twenty million cells per vial. Filling cryovials at this scale was a serious bottleneck so we decided to automate. Since 90% of our clients want cells in cryovials, we carried out validation studies using Fill-It. These showed Fill-It is more accurate than a human and can maintain good sterility in a Class II cabinet. We have tested Fill-It with around 20 different recombinant and non-recombinant cell types including CHO, HEK293 and some neuronal cell lines and all the cells grow well after automated dispensing. Fill-It has enabled a step change in the scale of projects we can undertake and we use it when we have runs of more than 200 tubes. We have not yet reached anywhere near the system's capacity, so we are very happy with its performance."

Stephen Guy, Technology Group Manager at TAP: "Fill-It is helping a prestigious European cell culture centre to increase their capacity to supply world class cell lines. Their studies show Fill-It can improve accuracy of dispensing without compromising the growth and utility of the cell lines. Any pharma company or biological resource institute can confidently install Fill-It to reduce the time and costs associated with producing large cell banks or with dispensing cells for major drug discovery projects."