Product introduction: Automatic manipulator for multi-layer flasks
We introduce the automatic manipulator for 40/52-layer flasks made by Shikoku Instruments.
Large volume cell culture has been done widely as the demand of cell-based therapeutics and regenerative medicine are growing bigger worldwide.
It is inevitable to scale up the cell culture from lab. To industry level when trying to do mass cell production.
Of course, cell culture conditions should be considered in advance, but it is relatively easy to perform scale-up of floating cells because it can be done by simply increasing the volume of culture medium and the number of culture vessel.
On the other hand, in terms of scale-up of adherent cells like MSC, it needs to enlarge the surface area of culture. Therefore, multi-layer flasks or microcarriers are commonly used as mass culture of adherent cells.
If microcarriers and multi-layer flasks are compared, multi-layer flasks are more commonly used for vaccine production or cell-based medicine production than microcarriers because it is relatively easy to observe cells on a multi-layer flask and also there is no share stress in contradiction to microcarrier cell culture.
Multi-layer flasks have been playing an important role in the field of vaccine production and cell-based medicine production, but there is a unignorable problem, “weight”.
The weight of a 40-layer flask including culture medium could be more than 10 kg, so it is huge
physical burden for an operator during the for operation like medium supply and drainage.
Although it might be possible to do those kinds of works and to handle only 2-3 pieces of flasks, it is impractical if he/she handles 4 or more flasks because it is not healthy nor efficient work.
We recommend you use the automatic manipulator for multi-layer flasks made by Shikoku instruments if 4 or more multi-layer flasks are used.
Since the dedicated cart for the automatic manipulator can accommodate 4 ea. of 40/52-layer flasks, the manipulator can manipulate 4 pieces of flasks at the same time.
It can improve operation efficiency and also reduce physical burden of an operator.
The automatic manipulator is operated by only electrical power.
Since it doesn’t use an air compressor nor an oil pressure pump, it is suitable for use in clean condition like clean room.
Since touch screen used for operation is together with the manipulator unit, it can be installed without annoying wiring. As the manipulator has casters, it is easy to move around and to be installed.
Depending on the degree of requests, Shikoku instruments can customize the manipulator according to customers’ requests as much as possible.
By using worldwide distributor network, they respond to troubleshooting and maintenance requests quickly.
Please contact us through the following “contact” button if you have an interest or questions on this manipulator.
Our large volume incubator MLF series is compatible with this manipulator.
Would you like to use our MLF incubator with the automatic manipulator?