Labcyte Echo 550 Compound Reformatter Selected as Key Component in New NIH Screening Center at Vanderbilt University.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- This week the National Institutes for Health announced that Vanderbilt University was one of the centers chosen for the new Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network (MLSCN), part of the NIH Roadmap Initiative.

"Molecular library screening will give academic researchers the ability to combine high throughput approaches with unique biology to rapidly find small molecule modulators of targets and processes," said Dr. Dave Weaver, Director of the Molecular Recognition and Screening Facility at the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology and a Research Assistant Professor of Pharmacology. "Only in the past few years has high-throughput screening become available to universities. Now academic researchers can dramatically advance their research in diverse areas from protein-protein interactions to systems biology covering many therapeutic indications.

"One important component of our high throughput screening is the Labcyte Echo 550 compound reformatter. The Echo 550 moves liquids with sound. This new instrument precisely transfers nanoliter volumes of chemical solutions."

"We are excited that Vanderbilt University has chosen acoustic droplet ejection (ADE) and the Echo 550 for their HTS facility," said Dr. Elaine J. Heron, CEO of Labcyte Inc. "Vanderbilt is the first university to choose this technology and joins the growing number of pharmaceutical companies that are using this state-of-the-art instrument to transfer library compounds into assay plates without the errors and cost in time and money associated with intermediate dilution steps."

"While the reduction in plastic consumables and solvents afforded by the Echo 550 is very appealing to our pharmaceutical customers," continued Heron, "it is even more critical for academic users who face unpredictable and limited budgets. The Echo 550 will help save on operational expenditures while providing better answers."

For more news about Vanderbilt, visit the Vanderbilt News Service homepage at www.vanderbilt.edu/News.

The Labcyte(R) Echo(TM) 550 compound reformatter uses the technologies described in these U.S. patents as well as others in the company's portfolio of 20 U.S. patents. The Echo 550 received an R&D 100 award for technical innovation and was the subject of scientific presentations on its use at pharmaceutical companies for high-throughput screening.

To view these patents, please visit:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2= HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/searchbool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1= 6893115&OS=6893115&RS=6893115 (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2= HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/searchbool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1= 6893836&OS=6893836&RS=6893836 (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

To see a poster showing the use of acoustic droplet ejection moving cells, please visit http://www.labcyte.com/news/events/Small_Talk_Big_Slides_2002.pdf.

To see a video of acoustic droplet formation, please visit http://www.labcyte.com/aboutus/technology/2nL.mpg.

For more information on focused acoustic technology and the Echo 550 compound reformatter, please visit http://www.labcyte.com/products/hardware/Echo550.html.

Labcyte Inc. is a privately held company that was formed by the merger of Picoliter Inc. and Labcyte, LLC in October 2003. The company, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, provides plastic laboratory supplies, as well as the Echo 550 compound dispenser. The Labcyte acoustic liquid handling technology has broad applications in the life science including dispensing equipment, assay systems, particle manufacturing, microarrays, and live-cell transfer devices. Labcyte has 20 issued U.S. patents on acoustic technology and over 20 U.S. patent applications pending as well as additional international filings. For more information, visit the company's website, www.labcyte.com.