Lab Report 8: The use of Multichannel pipettes

It all starts with a single channel

Accurate volumetric measurements and transfers are essential to all laboratories concerned with maintaining high levels of quality and productivity. The performance of pipettes varies substantially, and their accuracy cannot be taken for granted.

Many assays and experiments typically start in individual tubes and single channel pipettes are the tool of choice when it comes to pipetting at that stage. Once an assay has been developed (or established) using single channel pipettes, it can then be scaled up and transitioned from tubes to plates to process more samples at once and increase the throughput. At that point, using single channel pipettes is error prone, time consuming, repetitious and increases the risk of ergonomic issues.

For example, if you are using a single channel pipette to fill a 96-well plate in a typical assay, if you need to add 5 reagents to each well, you will need 480 individual pipetting steps (5 times 96 wells)! Keep reading to find out how you can reduce your chance for errors, as well as save time and effort by using multichannel pipettes.