Quick, Accurate And Stress-Free Pipetting That Persists ― Now For Volumes As Large As 10 ML

TOKYO, Japan - July 16, 2015 - PRLog -- It has been over a year since A&D Company, Limited announced their first and original single channel electronic pipettes, the MPA series. With this new product, A&D dares to reshape the pipette industry as well as users’ minds by replacing the prevailing mechanical type, and so far, the market has responded fairly positively. Researchers especially liked the MPA series for features such as its simple set up and operation, high precision independent of user proficiency, and not to mention affordability.

At the same time, however, A&D learned that there was also significant demand for multiple channel and large volume pipettes (the maximum volume that the MPA series originally offered was 1200 μL). From these, A&D chose the large volume pipette as their next development priority for two reasons. First, the goal of the MPA series was to replace existing sales of mechanical pipettes, and the majority of them are single channel. Secondly, large volume mechanical pipettes are particularly tiring to operate because of the large diameter of the cylinder and long movements of the piston, so offering electronic pipettes as an easier alternative made much more sense.

In July 2015, A&D finally finished developing and released the MPA-10000, a model with 10 mL (10,000 μL) capacity that can dispense from as small as 0.1 mL with 0.01 mL increments. Among many, the following are the top five reasons why A&D believes that researchers ought to choose the MPA-10000 instead of its mechanical counterparts:

1. Automatic control ensures accuracy for everyone at all times

Unlike mechanical pipettes, dispensed quantities will not vary with each person or each pipetting motion, making anyone’s assays always reliable. In other words, novice pipette users can realize the same level of precision as experts. Moreover, there is no risk of contaminating inside the cylinder by accidentally releasing the thumb holding down the plunger and thereby rapidly and excessively suctioning the sample liquid.

Further, in reality, it is extremely difficult for even highly experienced users to maintain a consistent pipetting motion (e.g. aspirating speed) every single time with a mechanical pipette. With the MPA-10000, uniform accurate pipetting is guaranteed no matter how long it is repeated.

2. Minimal stress, pain-free operation prevents errors due to fatigue

Operating a mechanical pipette imposes irregular movement on the thumb (i.e. holding it out perpendicular to the hand and then pushing the plunger all the way down with a force of a few kilograms). The repetition of this movement can lead to a decrease in work efficiency due to fatigue, severe stiff shoulders, and eventually repetitive strain injury (RSI) at the base of the thumb. As mentioned above, this is especially the case with large volume pipettes such as 5 mL or 10 mL.

The MPA-10000 is unique in that it is possible to control the plunger by lightly pressing a key with the ball of the forefinger (like pulling a trigger), while maintaining all fingers in a natural, effortless grip. In fact, A&D’s in-house experiment verified that virtually no physical strain occurs at all after 3,000 repeated pipettings over a 5 hour period.

3. Various useful pipetting functions, including multiple dispensing to a maximum of 99 times

Multiple dispensing is an operation that divides one aspirated volume into multiple dispensings of a smaller volume. When the volume for one dispensing is set to 0.1 mL, the MPA-10000 can perform 99 dispensings with a single aspiration, enabling researchers to fill all 96 microplate wells in one go.

Now, with conventional electronic pipettes, the first dispensing volume of multiple dispensing is known to become inaccurate due to backlash (i.e. looseness of moving parts), which presents itself when the operation switches from aspirating to discharging. The MPA-10000 automatically prevents this inaccuracy by discharging a small amount of sample immediately after aspiration (patent pending) so that the piston is always set in the descending position. It is therefore no longer necessary to discard and waste the first dispensing volume.

Multiple dispensing as well as other functions such as mixing and reverse operations will dramatically reduce time, stress and error associated with the same tasks carried out using a mechanical pipette.

4. Easy calibration and adjustment by users themselves, either by volume (mL) or weight (mg) (patent pending)

All users need to do is simply input the correct volume measured by a balance (A&D’s pipette accuracy testers, which automatically convert masses to volumes, are recommended) into the MPA-10000. Through regular calibrations, they can prevent their pipettes becoming non-conforming and thereby protect the validity of their research.

Alternatively, it is possible to calibrate and display the pipetting amount based on the weight of the sample liquid itself instead of volume. This function makes it much simpler to handle liquids that need to be managed by weight, such as a diluted solution of a solid or powder, eliminating the hassle of density calculations.

5. Extremely affordable

Finally, despite all the advantages the MPA-10000 can bring which can lower the cost of research in many ways, the price is almost comparable, if not cheaper, to those of name-brand mechanical pipettes. Besides, one MPA-10000 alone can do the work of two mechanical pipettes (5 mL and 10 mL). It can even replace pipette controllers in many applications as well.

Additional details can be found on the A&D website at http://www.aandd.jp/.

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A&D Company, Limited, headquartered in Tokyo, takes advantage of their world-class analog and digital signal processing technologies to produce a diverse array of laboratory and industrial measuring equipment. In particular, they are known as Japan’s top manufacturer of electronic weighing instruments ranging from ultrasensitive micro analytical balances to scales of several tons of capacity. Their innovations are always aimed at providing users with high practical utility and high value for the price. To find further information on A&D, visit http://www.aandd.jp/.