INSTRUMENTATION FOR AUTOMATED COLONY PROCESSING

THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROJECT IS TO (1) PROCESS LARGE NUMBERS OF CLONES THROUGH COLONY PICKING, (2) REPOSITION THECOLONIES IN LARGE RECTANGULAR ARRAYS, (3) PURIFY COLONIES BYRECLONING AS NECESSARY, (4) PROCESS THE DNA FROM EACH COLONYTO ALLOW RECOMBINANT DNAS TO BE TRANSFERRED TO NITROCELLULOSE OR OTHER FILTER MATERIALS, (5) PROBE THE ARRAYS EN MASSE WITH DNA PROBES UNDER DIFFERENT STRINGENCY CONDITIONS, AND (6) IDENTIFY AND ORDER OVERLAPPING CLONES. BASED ON PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY, AN AUTOMATIC CLONING, REPOSITIONING, AND HYBRIDIZATION ANALYSIS SYSTEM WILL BE DEVELOPED THAT ULTIMATELY CAN HANDLE CLONE SETS OF AS LARGE AS 2 MILLION CLONES. THE SYSTEM WILL BE CAPABLE OF PERFORMING LARGE MATRIX HYBRIDIZATION ANALYSES AT DIFFERENT AND CLOSELY CONTROLLED STRINGENCIES AND RECOVERING THE FILTER MATERIALS USED FOR MULTIPLE REPROBING. KEY ELEMENTS IN THE DESIGN ARE POSITIVE CLONE IDENTIFICATION, ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF DUPLICATE SETS OF LARGE ARRAYS, AND LONG TERM STORAGE OF THESE ARRAYS. THE ENTIRE SYSTEM WILL RUN AUTOMATICALLY IN A REMOTE ENVIRONMENT UNDER STERILE CONDITIONS.