PALO ALTO, Calif., — Cell Biosciences announces the introduction of the Firefly(TM) 3000 automated blotless immunoassay workstation for quantitative measurement of cell signaling and protein expression. The Firefly system is designed to leverage the knowledge and intuition of life science researchers by introducing automated parallel analysis into their laboratory operations. The heart of the Firefly system is a 96 capillary automated electrophoresis system that is optimized for isoelectric focusing. The Firefly system can perform virtually all tasks from loading the sample, immobilizing proteins, probing the sample with a single Antibody linked dye, and analyzing the various forms identified. With computer-controlled repeatability and round-the-clock automation, it is designed for unattended hands-off operation.

“By focusing Cell Bioscience’s research and engineering resources on the most utilized and most variable technique used in everyday labs — the Western Blot, we’ve developed a system that automates experimentation, increases throughput, documents workflow and reduces day-to-day and person-to-person variability,” said Linda Cahill, President & CEO at Cell Biosciences.

“Working with our customers and collaborators, we identified serious inefficiencies in the blotting technique itself that makes its utility dependent on the art of the technique,” added Cahill. “These inefficiencies have not been addressed by other instrumentation manufacturers. Researchers are still performing Western Blots manually, or are limited by robotic instrumentation that does not improve the technique by eliminating handling steps and errors that handling introduce into the experiment. The Firefly system reduces the number of steps from 60 to 10, loads samples by itself, captures and processes the data by itself and integrates readily into existing lab infrastructure.