Abstract
A robot system for clone replication and gridding, which is a preliminary state of the genome research, was developed and evaluated its performance. This gridding robot system consisted of 1) a gridding heat that replicated the clone, 2) a manipulator, as a part of body of robot, which transferred the gridding head along x-, y-, z-axis, 3) a well plate arranging board, 4) a sterilization unit, and 5) a control unit. Performance of the system was evaluated with 1) repeatability of the robot system, 2) clone replication efficiency, 3) time requirement of the replication, and 4) sterilization efficiency. The repeatability error of the robot system showed 0.219 mm and 0.094 mm in the direction of x- and y-axis, respectively. The success rate of the clone replication with the gridding head was 100% on the membrane filter. The time required for the replication was four minutes and fifty-five seconds from the four 96 well plates to a 384 well plate meanwhile the required time with well experienced hand labor was three minutes thirty-five seconds. The gridding operation of clone could not be done by hand labor and the required time with robot system for the gridding on the membrance filter with the control program 5$\times$5: 1 copy and 384 gridding pins was twenty minutes and twenty-five seconds. The efficiency of the sterilization was considered to be satisfactory since no growth of fungi was found around the area of replication in the membrane filter.
