Mol. Dyn. new DNA seq. robot

[daj (David Johnston)]

On 8 Jun 1994 10:36:48 -0700,
  Paul Morrison writes:

>bionetters,
>Molecular Dynamics introduced a DNA sample prep robot at FASEB last month.
>It is called the VISTRA DNA Labstation and has a magnetic bead recovery
>component. MD says: any DNA sequencing strategy, dye or radio, solid-phase
>or vanilla can be automated and run on this machine. Q. Anyone out there
>get a good look at the FASEB meeting? Any beta testers out there? How does
>it compare to Beckman Biomek 2000 and ABI Catalyst? 
>Any info would help, thanks, -Paul
>

Hi Paul and anyone else interested,
I wasn't at the FASED meeting but have spoken to both Amersham and MD reps 
about the machine (#51,500 in UK) and the MD rep brought the software in 
for me to have a look at. It comes with many protocols preprogrammed for 
plasmid extraction, M13 prep, automated and standard (isotopic) sequencing 
with t7, taq, deltataq, post sequencing dye removal etc and basically 
appears to be very flexible in its programming (either modifying existing 
protocols or creating your own). It runs from a PC under windows. One 
thing to note is that the magnetic bead system used is Amersham's FMP 
which works on a completely different principal to the Dynal system. I do 
not know of Beta testers as such but if anyone from GLAXO UK is listenning 
in, I know that one of their labs has already brought 4 of them and might 
be able to feed back.

Hope this helps, usual disclaimers apply

Cheers
DAJ

David A. Johnston
Dept of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road,
South Kensington, London SW7 5DB. England
(tel 071 9389297, fax 071 9388754, email daj at nhm.ic.ac.uk)