Why lyophilized beads are better than powders
With multiple benefits including cost savings and reduced environmental impact, it is no wonder that companies are moving toward lyophilized beads in their product lineup. Bead-format lyophilization has significant advantages over traditional lyophilized powders:
- Lyophilized beads offer the best possible ratio of volume to surface area, resulting in the fastest reconstitution.
- Bead formats require no aliquoting and no freeze-thaw cycles after reconstitution, protecting against batch variation and product degradation.
- Contamination risk with lyophilized beads is lower as there is no central stock to corrupt.
Argonaut is the exclusive producer of LyoDoseTM beads, a proprietary spherical lyophilized bead format that contains a specified volume of reagent. LyoDose beads are unit dose, meaning that they contain a specific volume of reagent. This can range from 5-60µl per bead, and is highly uniform across lots.
The unit dose format allows you to eliminate pipetting steps in your protocol and replace them with a lyophilized bead. Instead of having your end user pipette small volumes of sensitive reagents into the reaction tube, simply prepackage an all-in-one bead directly in the tube and add water. PCR strip tubes are one of the most popular packaging formats for LyoDose beads.
LyoDose beads eliminate pipetting steps and simplify protocols
For applications with multiple reagents that cannot be pre-mixed in a single bead, consider multiple beads each with a unique color. LyoDose beads use inert dyes that do not interfere with downstream assays such as qPCR. Additionally, dyes allow your end user to easily identify which reagents they have already added. Quality control can also benefit from the ease of inspecting for a specific color and number of beads.
Use colored LyoDose beads to improve user experience
Reduced pipetting steps and easy reagent identification both serve to simplify protocols for your end user. With fewer opportunities for mistakes, you will see improved user success and a reduction in costly product replacements and service calls.
While Argonaut offers other excellent lyophilization formats including vials and bulk powders, many teams find LyoDose beads are the best solution for their products. With so many benefits to offer, now is the time to convert to LyoDose beads.
Contact us to learn more about the benefits of lyophilization beads for your product or visit us at www.argonautms.com
