The evolution of technology is what drives our world. We see it in our everyday life, thanks to our mobile phones and computers, without which we could not be as efficient. But this also happens in all other industries, including the medical sector. One of the most important technological developments of the last few years, in that field, is certainly the rise of multi-detection microplate readers. Here is why.
The Search for New Drugs
It isn’t easy to explain in layman’s terms how drugs come to life. One of the important elements for researchers is the capacity to have access to as many “numbers” as they can. They have access to these data through HTS (high-throughput screening). The more samples they can analyze rapidly, the clearer the problems and solutions become. The first search has to be done on the illness itself, and the second part of the tests on how the illness reacts to various drug compounds. To get anywhere near the completion of a drug, you need thousands and thousands of these tests. That is where multi-detection microplate readers are invaluable to researchers.
If these medical devices have become so performant over the years, it is partly due to the various requests that researchers have made towards the instrumentation and software providers. They needed more sample processing and more options, all with the objective of gathering information quicker. And so, microplate readers got caught in that frenzy and found themselves having to become more performant, constantly. That is why today, they have become more accurate, precise, and efficient than they were ever believed to become one day, in the process.
Versatility has become the Most Important Characteristic
If life science research laboratories have adopted microplate readers in such a way, it is mostly because of their versatility. Whereas in virology, you need to find answers quickly and need your equipment to help you out in the speed of the output, in life science, you need first and foremost to be able to process a lot of various information. Thanks to their microplate readers, they are able to proceed to kinetic reading, well scanning, reagent injection, monochromators, temperature control, and shaking. These are all actions that are included in the core of their research, and a multi-detection microplate reader has the capacity to do all of these tasks.
We can safely say that it is the HTS revolution that has brought about the rise of the multi-detection microplate readers in the medical industry. It created a need for high-quality instrumentation, software, and assay technologies, which they were able to deliver. The fact that they could be acquired at a reasonable cost, in comparison to other prior HTS instrumentation, has certainly helped their growth. But more than anything, it is their high performance that made them indispensable in laboratories over the world.
The pandemic has also helped the industry to grow. The technology was the first one to offer a rapid test, which could be done in less than 30 minutes. It saw a rise in demand at the time. Now that they are in laboratories, all over the world, scientists will benefit from them in many different ways.