Cost-Effective, Walkaway Automation of Live Cell Assays

Tecan’s updated Spark® reader combines the benefits of a multimode microplate reader and a bright field imaging system in a compact package. Unlike other multimode readers, Spark lets you see what’s happening to your cells, offering automated cell imaging, confluence measurements, cell counting and viability assessments to simplify cell biology protocols and enable long-term, walkaway experiments.

Spark has been developed specifically to address the needs of cell-based workflows, and incorporates a host of features – including precise regulation of temperature, gas partial pressures and humidity – to provide an incubator-like environment and maintain optimal assay conditions. The system’s Live Viewer function turns your microplate reader into an automated microscope at the touch of a button, allowing you to instantly image and photograph defined positions in a microplate well. It offers bright field microscope-like functionality with 4x magnification and a user-definable focus, giving you another way to perform fast and easy quality control of your cells before starting your assay. In addition, Spark’s cell imaging module offers high throughput, label-free cell counting and one-click, trypan blue-based cell viability analysis using disposable Cell Chips™.

Spark also helps you to generate more reproducible cell-based assay data by allowing you to continuously monitor cell confluence within your microplate, and automatically inject a reagent once a user-defined confluence level is achieved. Together with the system’s advanced Fusion Optics – which combine the flexibility of monochromators with the sensitivity of filters – this ensures there is a Spark configuration to perfectly match your budget and workflow.