Automated microbiology growth curve analysis system

许多生命科学家的共同需求是能够通过使用台式吸收光谱仪监测浊度随时间的增加来测量微生物细胞的生长速率。然而，这种方法的局限性在于样品量相对较大（1ml），并且一次只能测量一个样品。此外，必须从正在生长的培养物中提取样本，以便在光谱仪中读取。此应用程序用于自动光谱仪，可直接测量多孔板中多达200个独立培养物的微生物生长，每个样品仅为0.2 mL。该仪器作为热控制摇床/培养箱，可按编程时间间隔自动读取生长细胞培养物的浊度值（吸光度），并将200个生长曲线的整个数据集传输到计算机进行分析和绘图。该仪器将使圭尔夫大学的研究人员能够将他们的研究效率提高近200倍。

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.