Tips to fit your needs

High quality pipettes and correct techniques are essential to ensure reliable and reproducible results, but the choice of pipette tip is often overlooked. We understand that there isn’t one tip for every application, which is why we offer a variety of options alongside our standard GRIPTIPS to match the needs of specific laboratory workflows. For example, the 300 µl LONG GRIPTIPS are 102 mm in length, allowing access to 100 mm or 1.4 ml tubes without the concern of contaminating the pipette shaft. At the other end of the scale, the 1250 µl SHORT GRIPTIPS enable users to pipette closer to the workbench, improving pipetting ergonomics for repeated high-volume pipetting tasks.

Wide bore options

Wide bore tips are commonly used in cell culture workflows to reduce the shearing forces. Many steps in these protocols – such as cell detachment, sampling, seeding and cell-based assays – require mixing with a pipette, which can cause trauma to cells as they are repeatedly forced through the narrow orifice at the end of the tip. This can impact cell viability, spreading and proliferation, decreasing the reproducibility of results. Our 300 and 1250 μl WIDE BORE GRIPTIPS have a larger aperture – with an inner diameter of 1.5 mm – to alleviate these shearing forces, helping to improve the consistency of cell-based applications.

Cell culture isn’t the only pipetting task that can benefit from the use of wide bore tips. These tips can also be used to reduce flow resistance when pipetting some non-aqueous solutions. For example, they allow very viscous solutions – e.g. 80 % glycerol – to enter the tip more easily and can reduce foaming when dispensing washing agents such as Tween® 20.

Low retention tips

Another consideration when choosing the right pipette tip is the physiochemical properties of the liquid. This can also have a significant impact on accuracy and precision, particularly at low volumes. Using standard pipette tips made of polypropylene to pipette low surface tension liquids – such as oils or solutions containing detergents – or viscous fluids common in some biological applications can cause the tips to take on hydrophilic properties, resulting in fluid retention as the sample adheres to the inner surface of the tip. Low Retention GRIPTIPS – developed to work with our range of manual and electronic pipettes – offer an ideal solution to overcome this issue. Incorporating a unique polypropylene blend with increased hydrophobic properties, Low Retention GRIPTIPS ensure optimal liquid recovery to enhance the reproducibility of research results. We chose this blended polypropylene approach over the silicone coating techniques commonly used for low retention disposable tips as it prevents residues washing or leaching out with the sample and negatively impacting results.