SBIR Phase II: Development and Manufacture of High-Density Plate Washer

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop a plate washer capable of washing very high-density plates, such as 1536 well plates, for ELISA and high-throughput screening assays. Currently, there are automated plate washers for 96 and 384 well plates, but there are none available for plates with ultra-high density. This is because currently available washer technology, employing a nozzle system, cannot be made reliable enough to allow dispense and aspirate nozzles to properly reach within each of the many, very small wells, and because the thin nozzles needed can get easily clogged using many standard buffers. In contrast, the proposed system uses a steady stream or sheet of solution, making the system less likely to clog. The commercial application of this project will be to allow use of high-throughput screening assays by industrial and academic researchers involved in genomics and drug discovery research. The proposed technology will enable additional use of fluorescent chemical compounds, that typically require a wash step to remove interfering substances, for screening.