Beckman Coulter Life Sciences has launched the EMnetik System to semi-automate workflows while reducing the amount of time required to achieve a PCR cleanup.

Built using electromagnets, EMnetik 24 and the accompanying EMnetik PCR Cleanup Kit and EMnetik Plasmid Purification Kit uses magnetic bead-based technology to clean nucleic acids in a stationary device.

Touchpoints to complete PCR cleanup are reduced by up to 80% compared to leading spin-column products, reducing 300 touchpoints to 50. PCR cleanup can also be achieved in 16 minutes, down from 30 minutes expediting and improving bead mixing and separation.

The benchtop instrument can run 1-24 samples at a time. The streamlined cleanup process and semi-automation also helps eliminate the potential for errors.

Dr. Brittany Niccum, commercial product manager in the company’s genomic reagents biotechnology business unit, said: “For early lab students it can be a hard lesson learned to write on the vial, only to have the ethanol wash drastically smudge the writing. I remember as a young scientist the errors this created in my runs, and the frustrating time it added to the process. We’re excited to introduce this innovation and bring DNA cleanup into 21st century.”

The EMnetik system offers updates for synthetic and molecular biology industries, which last saw a workflow update for plasmid prep and PCR cleanup in 1991. These kits have proliferated into every lab that performs basic molecular biology processes. The EMnetik system is the future of simplified PCR cleanup.