Currently, researchers use a glass slide with a grid pattern, count cells one by one, add the number of cells in each box and multiply that number by a dilution factor to calculate the final concentration of cells. The Countess automates this process, completing all counts and calculations in approximately 30 seconds, the company said.
According to the company, the Countess instrument: counts live and dead cells, calculates percent viability, measures average cell size, calculates dilutions for downstream applications and uses just 10 microliters of sample.
August Sick, general manager and vice president of Invitrogen’s cellular analysis business unit, said: “This instrument was designed with the scientists’ workflows in mind, and adds to Invitrogen’s already productive line of benchtop instruments, as well as the full line of reagents to support those instruments.
“The Countess automates a very tedious and subjective manual process and gives accurate, repeatable results, freeing scientists to concentrate their efforts on the outcomes rather than the process.”