CytoFa is a compact, adaptable and cost-effective system for the fully automatic application of liquids to biological samples and for the acquisition of microscopic images thereof. The basic configuration can be flexibly modified or expanded for many parts of the system (e.g. microscope equipment, pipetting functions).
The basic system contains a high-quality, motorized upright microscope equipped with a high-resolution camera, a robot with an integrated pipette for liquid handling, and a thermostat heating block for storage and temperature control of the liquids to be applied. There are up to three additional platforms for well plates without temperature control. Liquid waste is collected in a beaker.
During the automatic process, the CytoFa interior is protected against extraneous light and the set temperature is kept constant. Therefore CytoFa is particularly suitable for the handling of light-sensitive and temperature-sensitive reagents and fluorescence microscopy.
CytoFa is easy to use with the user-friendly software for setting up automatic runs. This software controls various parts of the microscope (e.g. stage, lenses), the pipetting robot and the fully automatic image acquisition (2D and 3D) by the high-resolution camera.
| A | Control and Display panel |
| B | Environmental control |
| C | Enclosed lightproof housing |
| D | Camera |
| E | Upright microscope Axio Imager (Zeiss) |
| F | Pipetting robot |
| G | Thermostat heating block (heating and cooling) |
| H | Option: Matching Base frame |
Features:
- Microscope Axio Imager.M2 (Zeiss) with motorized z-drive, LED based illuminating system (BF, PH, FL).
- CCD camera with electronically controlled shutters for rapid image acquisition in high quality.
- Pipetting robot (Cartesian robot with electronic pipette) for liquid handling.
- Thermostat heating block with 96-well adapter plate for temperature control of liquids to be applied.
- Environmental control for regulated temperature in the entire interior of CytoFa.
- Software pi4_control for easy and flexible configuration of microscope settings, pipetting parameters and image acquisition without programmer’s skills required, automatic setting of autofocus, 2D and 3D image acquisition (z-stack).
- Enclosed housing on frame feet for operation on a lab table (Option: matching base frame).