Automated microbiology growth curve analysis system

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The common need for many Life Scientists is the ability to measure the growth rates of microbial cells by monitoring the increase in turbidity with time using a table-top absorption spectrometer.  However, this approach is limited in that the sample volume is relatively large (1 mL) and only a single sample can be measured at a time.  Furthermore, a sample must be taken from a growing culture to read in the spectrometer.  This application is for an automated spectrometer that directly measures microbial growth for as many as 200 separate cultures in a multi-well plate where each sample is only 0.2 mL.  This instrument functions as a thermally controlled shaker/incubator that will automatically read the turbidity values (absorbances) of the growing cell cultures at programmed time intervals and it transfers the entire datasets for 200 growth curves to a computer for analysis and plotting.  This instrument will enable researchers at the University of Guelph to amplify their research productivity by nearly 200-fold.