Automated sampling for yeast fermentations in wine using Tecan's Freedom EVO 200 platform

The Wine Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology Laboratory at the University of Adelaide has developed a customised solution offering fully automated sampling for yeast fermentations. Based on a Tecan Freedom EVO 200 platform, this system frees researchers from the need to manually aliquot samples day and night for up to three weeks. Dr Tommaso Liccioli Watson, a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory, explained: “We use approaches such as directed evolution and mutagenesis to develop novel yeast and bacterial strains to improve the winemaking process. However, these methods are often very time-consuming, requiring large-scale screening of hundreds or even thousands of candidate strains, often from heterogeneous populations. Monitoring the fermentation process for large numbers of samples is very laborious, requiring sampling of fermentation vessels every six hours or so over the course of several days to several weeks.

“Automation was the solution, and Tecan’s Freedom EVO really stood out. We were able to integrate our own custom hardware solutions onto the platform with relative ease, building a walkaway fermentation monitoring solution to generate 96-well microplates ready for loading onto our various analytical instruments. It only takes half a day to set up a 96-fermentation experiment, which can be remotely monitored via a smartphone from another lab, from home or — because this is Australia — from the beach. Compared to having to be in the lab every few hours, day and night, this is fantastic.”