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Small Lab Automation Starts Here

Automated colony selection, plating, streaking, and liquid handling without the footprint, complexity, or cost of traditional automation.

You don’t need a massive facility or a dedicated automation engineer to run reproducible, scalable microbial workflows.

Small lab automation brings precision, consistency, and speed to colony handling workflows that are still too often manual, time-consuming, and error-prone.

From plating and streaking to colony selection and liquid handling, automation can now fit your bench, your budget, and your pace of growth.

It All Starts with the QPix FLEX

Smart design meets powerful functionality.

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1. High-resolution color and white-light camera

Enables precise colony classification based on morphology and pigmentation – ideal for phenotype-based selection and microbial diversity screening.

2. Multi-function pipetting head (4-channel)

Automates media dispensing, plating, cherry picking, and streaking, reducing manual intervention and ensuring consistent sample preparation.

3. Swappable tip system

You can quickly switch between sterilizable metal pins and disposable tips without changing hardware. Depending on your lab's needs, you can maximize sterility, sustainability, or budget.

4. Integrated barcode reader

Built-in 2D barcode scanning ensures full sample traceability from plating through picking and downstream analysis.

5. Modular labware deck

Supports flexible source and destination labware configurations: Petri dishes, PCR plates, microfuge tubes, 96/384-well plates, and more.

6. Proprietary plating and streaking tip

Gently streaks colonies across agar surfaces with precision, preserving plate quality and minimizing disruption to delicate media.

7. Compact, chamber-ready footprint

Sized for benchtops and hypoxic chamber use (25.2 x 21.6 x 27.6 in), allowing full automation even in space-constrained or anaerobic environments.

 

 

 

Meet the QPix Family

Think of the QPix FLEX integrated workcell as the bold new kid on the block: compact, chamber-ready, and designed to take colony picking to places it's never gone before. But it isn't going it alone. The QPix family has been trusted by scientists worldwide for decades, with systems built to scale from benchtop breakthroughs to industrial throughput. Whatever your lab size, workload, or research goals, there's a QPix built for it.

QPix XE-4

QPix XE

Small lab? Big ambitions? The QPix XE delivers full-featured colony picking without hogging your space. With imaging and robotic precision, it keeps efficiency high while its modular design grows with you, from standalone benchtop use to integration in a larger automated workcell. Think of it as the compact system that punches way above its weight.

QPix 420-1

QPix 420

Ditch the toothpicks. The QPix 420 is your entry point into automation, replacing manual picking with a compact system that’s easy to run and fits right into your lab. With its flexible deck layout and broad labware compatibility, the 420 helps you standardize workflows, reduce errors, and free up time — all without taking up precious bench space.

QPix LH-1

QPix LH

Manual plating slowing you down? The QPix LH takes over with automated colony picking and plating that clocks in at under 10 seconds per sample. Its compact footprint, flexible deck, and wide labware compatibility make it the perfect upgrade from manual workflows. And when you’re ready to scale, the LH is future-proofed for integration into larger automated systems.

Pick Us Like We Pick Colonies

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Your Workflow, Our Playground

Not every lab looks the same — and neither do the challenges. Whether you’re engineering new organisms, chasing ag-tech breakthroughs, keeping pets healthier, or driving drug discovery, the QPix FLEX system is built to flex. And with the broader QPix family behind it, there’s a solution for every colony, every workflow, every breakthrough.

Stop Babysitting Plates. Start Publishing Faster.

Designing new organisms? Don’t waste hours plating, streaking, and manually picking — especially with stubborn non-model strains. The QPix FLEX system automates it all in one mini-workcell that fits right on your bench (or inside your hypoxic chamber). Disposable tips block cross-contamination, high-res imaging gets you the right colonies the first time, and you get up to 8 hours back per run. More breakthroughs, fewer do-overs.

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Crops and Cows Deserve Better Data.

Mucosal, pigmented, “hard-shelled” colonies? Hand-picking them is a recipe for failed runs. The QPix FLEX system isolates even the toughest strains with precision imaging and disposable tips that keep contamination out. Plating, streaking, picking, and dispensing all happen in one compact system, so you can iterate faster on soil, livestock, or crop projects. Translation: fewer flops, faster impact.

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Because Pets Don’t Have Time to Wait.

When you’re developing vaccines or therapies for pets, every day counts. Manual picking and contamination risks? Not helping. The QPix FLEX workcell speeds up pathogen screening by automating the boring stuff and eliminating cross-contamination with disposable tips. Cleaner data, faster turnarounds, and fewer do-overs mean healthier pets, sooner.

 

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Sterility Isn’t Optional. Neither Is Speed.

Drug discovery demands contamination-free workflows. Washing tips and juggling instruments? That slows you down and erodes confidence in your data. The QPix FLEX system delivers clean, GMP-friendly automation with disposable tips and a compact footprint that fits controlled or cleanroom-adjacent labs. More throughput, more reliability, and more confidence in every colony you pick.

 

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Low Oxygen? No Problem.

Studying anaerobes shouldn’t mean sticking to manual workflows. Most automation can’t hack it inside hypoxic chambers — but the QPix FLEX was built for it. With its compact footprint, sterilizable or disposable tip options, and advanced imaging, the QPix FLEX automates plating, streaking, picking, and tracking even in low-oxygen conditions. Translation: more reproducibility, less babysitting, and breakthroughs that actually thrive where other systems can’t.

 

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Every Step. One System. No Guesswork.

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