Status:
ReviewerMember since: 2022
Organization: Ginkgo Bioworks
Amazing liquid handler for scale down assay development and screen workflows
Application Area: Biochemistry, High Throughput Screening
"The Tempest is a walkup and integration friendly device for combinatorial assay development and reagent handling. It excels and liquid handling accuracy and precision, making it a great tool for scale down assay development and screening. The basic user interface is easy to use and understand, although more complex features can be hard to manage. Initial training on the equipment was not sufficient to avoid some preventable hardware and liquid handling errors."
Status:
ReviewerMember since: 2020
Organization: Myriad Women's Health
Great instrument. Works with no issues and support is amazing.
Application Area:Manufacturing of reagent plates.
"Its not easy setting up the instrument for first time use in terms of the software. The instrument works great after setup. Customer support is amazing in terms of help."
Manufacturer's ResponseThe software for the TEMPEST comes pre-installed on the instrument and there is no need for a user to install any software. The experience described may have been an IT issue due to local restrictions. We are happy to hear that our support has helped you get up to speed.
Status:
ReviewerMember since: 2020
Organization: ActivX Biosciences
TEMPEST liquid handler - Highly recommended!
Application Area:High-throughput screening
"The TEMPEST is by far the best liquid handler for HTS that I have ever used. I have performed multiple successful high-throughput screens with ours. It uses no consumables (tips), it dispenses without contacting the plate and primes the lines without waste by recirculating reagent. The TEMPEST dispenses are so accurate that I would routinely run 55-plate dispenses with just 2ml dead-volume and never had any fear of running out of reagent."
Status:
ReviewerMember since: 2020
Organization: IRBM Science Park S.p.A
Great reproducibility of the data.
Application Area:Test compounds
"We used the tempest dispenser for our drug discovery projects. It is a precious instrument for the dispensing of cells, biochemical reagents and detection mix for biochemical and cellular assays."
Status:
ReviewerMember since: 2019
Organization: Corteva Agriscience
Accurate dispensing with low dead volumes.
Application Area:Reagent loading
"The Tempest works well for bulk dispensing of multiple reagents. The only problem we had was with the stackers, which often got stuck with plates. The customer service team worked hard to remedy this issue."
Status:
ReviewerMember since: 2020
Organization: St Jude Children's Research Hospital
Excellent positive displacement dispenser.
Application Area:Robot integrated reagent dispenser
"The Tempest is a precise positive displacement bulk reagent dispenser. In our experience, we see highly reproducible results in all of our assay reagent additions. Setting up dispense lists is easy and intuitive. Having the flexibility to dispense up to 12 reagents from a single dispenser allows us to design assays in ways we could not with single reagent dispensers in the the past."
Status:
Advanced ReviewerMember since: 2015
Organization: EMD Serono
Excellent for assay development and screening
Application Area:Enzymatic screening
"The instrument is easy to configure and offers a high degree of versatility for liquid handling tasks. Having the stackers and a time delay option is immensely helpful for biochemical screens and other applications. The software for plate teaching and creating protocols is very simple to work with."
Status:
Expert ReviewerMember since: 2012
Organization: Exact Sciences
Application Area:Small Volume Dispensing
"This is one of the best instruments on the market. This instrument has a small footprint that fits easily into labs. It can dispense twelve different reagents to any location and any volume on a plate, and even use barcode pick lists to direct the location and volume of dispensing. This instrument is a non-contact dispenser and we have seen our data quality improve by incorporating this instrument into our workflow. It is an invaluable piece of equipment, easily one of the best investments for a small volume dispensing lab. Enables DOE experiments as well. The one down side is for u shaped wells modifications need to be made to dispense speed to ensure the volume stays in the wells. We have found the support and assistance from Formulatrix to be excellent, and I would highly recommend this instrument. "
The TEMPEST packs a huge amount of functionality into a small footprint. Even with optional stackers to hold up to 25 standard height plates and a barcode reader that increases traceability and enables multiple experimental designs to be executed in one unattended process; the system will comfortably fit inside a biological safety cabinet. Useful when dispensing cells, which the TEMPEST excels at.
The positive displacement microdiaphragm dispensing technology means that reagents, beads, and cells do not pass through any harsh mechanical solenoid valves. This improves cell viability and prevents clogging that frequently hampers dispensing with other systems. The unique recirculating prime feature also ensures that cells and beads remain in suspension and helps to achieve uniform & reproducible results even across long dispensing runs. Recirculating during priming also helps to reduce waste of precious reagents; a non-recoverable dead volume of <40μL.
The chip-based diaphragm dispensing technology enables the TEMPEST to dispense a broad range of liquids, from solvents including DMSO, aqueous reagents, and even highly viscous liquids without needing to perform any calibration steps. The chips are even automatically cleaned ready for their next use, and the next use, and the next use - up to 1 million dispense cycles without loss of performance. This economical and eco-friendly method of dispensing will prevent the expense and waste of thousands of pipette tips over the lifetime of the system.
Application areas include - cell dispensing for cell culture and cell-based assays; assay development; high throughput screening; time course and kinetic assays; dose-response curves; ELISA; qPCR and NGS. The intuitive software allows users to create even complex dispense protocols in minutes and is capable of importing data from plate readers, design of experiment software and other external sources.
Compatible with SBS/ANSI standard labware 6 / 12 / 24 / 48 / 96 / 386 / 1536 well plates, can also handle deep-well plates.
Fast: dispense 5μL to 96 well plate in 4 seconds; 10μL to 384 well plate in 9 seconds; 200nL to 1536 well plate in 11 seconds.
Precise: CV <5% at 1 µL, <8% at 0.2 µL"