Synbiosis

Synbiosis was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Cambridge, UK. Synbiosis markets automated systems for applications in microbiology and virology in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Synbiosis systems are used by many of the world’s top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for testing the effectiveness of flu and pneumococcal vaccines, antibiotics and anti-microbial therapies.

Synbiosis supplies colony counters and inhibition zone measurement systems for rapid, accurate analysis and documentation of antibiotic susceptibility testing plates and Ames test plates, as well as SRD and OPKA assay plates and includes technical expertise and service support with all its products.

Automated Colony Counting Methods

Synbiosis ProtoCOL 2 and åCOLyte equipment combine leading-edge imaging technology with commanding software. They use automated colony counting methods to determine which of the microbial colony images captured are ‘true’ and not bubbles in the agar or sample debris.

The software then counts each colony individually to generate numerical values, displayed alongside the plate image of microbial colonies. These systems have software specifically designed to be integrated into any 21CFR part11 environment and come complete with Installation Qualification (IQ), Operational Qualification (OQ) and Performance Qualification (PQ) information to allow operation to GLP, GCP and GMP standards in any pharmaceutical company.

Bacteria Killing Assay

A bacteria killing assay such as the Opsonophagocytic-Killing assay is employed to establish the efficacy of many anti-microbial drugs or vaccines. This assay involves challenging the vaccine or drug with the microorganism it is being used against and then counting the number of microbial colonies which remain viable after treatment.

Synbiosis offers the ProtoCOL 2 and åCOLyte platforms to automatically count the remaining colonies on a plate, post bacteria killing assay. These Synbiosis systems are designed for use in a GMP environment and can help to accurately measure the effectiveness of anti-microbial drugs and vaccines in a bacteria killing assay.

Inhibition Zone Test

To determine how potent an antibiotic or flu vaccine is, an inhibition zone test is often used. Synbiosis supplies the ProtoCOL 2 and AutoZone to automatically image an entire plate of zones from an inhibition zone test.

The systems can distinguish which are ‘true’ zones and not just bubbles in the media and their software measures the diameter of these zones to provide both images and accurate numerical data from each plate.

The results generated can be automatically transferred into statistical analysis software to produce potency data that can be stored on computer and presented toregulatory authorities when requested.