The Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of Maryland Medical School conducts research into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s in model cell systems, specifically looking at the role of certain secreted chaperones in the formation of aggregates in neuronal cell lines and brain samples. Professor Iris Lindberg explained: “Our work involves a lot of cell culture and this requires a huge amount of pipetting, including transferring samples between different plate formats and dispensing different volumes in plate wells.”

Saving time and money

Iris continued: “I realized that the major cost of running a laboratory is personnel time. We try and do as much as possible in 96 well plates and to reduce our hands-on time, and that’s where we have found the VOYAGER adjustable tip spacing pipette extremely useful. Previously, we were using a single channel pipette to move our samples between different labware formats, which was very laborious. We looked at multiple options on the market, and we found that on all other systems you have to manually move a lever or dial to change tip spacing, which is inconvenient when you’re handling a plate of cells. We chose the VOYAGER because we can adjust tip spacing electronically using one hand. It’s great for a range of applications, including loading gels, repeat dispensing from the same tip or transferring between plate formats, as the variable spacing can be adjusted for your needs – even for customized gel spacing – it’s really handy to be able to go back and forth rapidly between tip spacings.