Development and evaluation of a micropipette tip washing system

Greening automation: Wash and Re-use of disposable 384-well liquid handling tips to enable sustainable high-throughput vaccine development

Laboratory automation uses large amounts of plastic consumables, generating substantial single-use plastic waste. Automated ELISAs are an indispensable analytical tool in vaccine formulation and process development. Current workflows, however, rely on disposable liquid handling tips. In progress toward sustainability, we developed workflows for washing 384-well format liquid handling tips, using nontoxic reagents, for re-use during ELISA testing. We estimate that this workflow reduces plastic and cardboard waste in our facility by 989 kg/year and 202 kg/year, respectively, without introducing new chemicals into our waste steam.

Micropipette tips--the unsung heroes of mass spectrometry

Micropipette tip (tip) pipetting accuracy and precision are functions of tip manufacture consistency, morphological variation, and retained inner tip wall particulate matter. Irregular tip inner wall surfaces and retained particulate matter cause pipetting inaccuracy. Washed and unwashed tips from seven manufacturers were compared using weight by difference (six), microscopic Luxol Fast Blue staining (seven), and matrix-assisted laser desorption/onization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry (six). Photomicrographs revealed tip irregularity and inner wall retained particulate matter. Computer model analysis was used to identify tip irregularity and retained matter. These tests established the utility of a pipette solvent wash to increase the performance and the accuracy of tips and, thus, improve the MALDI mass spectra obtained.