PTC Tempo Thermal Cycler

Our design process for this project followed Cobalt’s proven development steps tailored in this instance to collaborate with Bio-Rad’s California-based inhouse team. This brought together our respective technical expertise and shared aim for a well-designed, user-centred outcome.

In several ways, the project met and exceeded Bio-Rad’s brief of a new-generation instrument that supported diverse workflows and lab types - one example being the unique hinge design developed and engineered ahead of the main design phase, as this informed the instrument’s overall dimensional profile and significantly widened its compatibility to different sample plate configurations.

Our process commenced with understanding and observing user needs with one of these being the premium of laboratory bench space. This drove several design decisions within the project and outcomes in the final design: minimal footprint, lower lid opening (allowing clearance to operate under low overhead shelving) and back-set mass, feet placement facilitating the instrument’s touch screen to safely overhang on shallow benchtops.

Despite being on different continents, the Cobalt and Bio-Rad project teams contributed their respective expertise and insights throughout the project with a collaborative and common focus. For example, Bio-Rad’s team was rightly determined to maintain their global-leadership reputation in PCR instrumentation. Key elements of the instrument’s architecture were jointly designed to maximise the benefits of Bio-Rad’s new reduced-mass sample block heating technology. In turn, this provided industry-high levels of thermal stability, which is a key determinate for accuracy and performance, as well as user-centric advantages, such as compact benchtop size and sample accessibility.

Through a combination of core technology, user-centred design, and collaborative development, the PTC Tempo comprehensively responds to, and satisfies the design brief, setting a new global benchmark within its product category and addressing all the criteria of design excellence.

Function:
PTC Tempo’s latest heat block technology underpins superior thermal gradient temperatures across multiple configurations – from 48- to 384-well plates. Accessibility: This has been considered across user groups (manual-mode for highly-skilled research scientists; to automated-mode for high throughput, limited operator input scenarios). Easier sample access and updated software / GUI interface improve flexibility and protocol management.

Aesthetics:
PTC Tempo cohesively resolves both functional and emotive objectives. Its compact dimensions are perceptually reduced through curved surfaces and strategic colour-breaks. Aesthetic cues guide usability i.e. projected light indicates status and highlights touchpoints. Its overall design is a fresh, confident, yet approachable progression of Bio-Rad’s instrumentation lineage, while its crisp, flowing edges and uniform shadow-lines express the instrument’s accuracy/precision.

Safety:
PTC Tempo meets IEC61010 (fire and excessive temperature) and is designed to eliminate electrical and mechanical hazards. Hinging lids are free of pinch points and positioned for wide ergonomic accessibility. Remote connectivity and highly visible status lights minimise time spent within or moving between labs, reducing personal exposure and biohazard risk.

Quality:
Materials and DfM detailing express the high quality expected of a premium lab instrument. Commonly used touch-points are IP sealed allowing for cleaning and product care. Instrument components that are at risk of replacement are designed to be modular and serviced with ease.

Commerciality:
PTC Tempo will grow Bio-Rad’s reputation as a technically superior market leader by exceeding user expectations and enhancing performance. Multiple connectivity options, including Bio-Rad’s BR.io Cloud Platform, will open new customer markets, and compatibility to automated set-ups will increase its commercial potential.

The PTC Tempo’s aim of flexibility and adaptability required an innovative design approach. From a single platform, the device’s manual and automated configurations needed to suit different sample sizes, workflow practices, operator skills and laboratory scales – from small research labs, to large high-throughput operations. Our design challenge was to support these diverse use-case modes despite several functional conflicts.

One of the most prominent design innovations is the lid. Manual device users required an easily accessible touch-point to mechanically unlock and operate the dual-hinging lid. For automatic device users, however, this operation was motorised so user interaction of the lid is discouraged. This conflict was resolved by giving the feature dual-purpose – its both a handle touch-point and a status light. This allowed for visually consistency across the product family, while catering for both requirements.

PTC Tempo’s high adaptability is also made possible via Bio-Rad’s patented reduced-mass sample block. Heating and cooling more quickly than standard blocks, this innovative design utilises Peltier technology to maintain tight temperature uniformity across all samples throughout the full length of the cycling run. These technologies, combined with six independently controlled thermal electric modules, allow for a wide range of samples sizes to be run in the same operating platform while maintaining high performance and accuracy.

Scientific research and analysis is crucial in our lives and world, impacting us as individuals, within communities and societies, and beyond to our natural world and environment.

The PTC Tempo is a PCR instrument used to make millions of copies of DNA, allowing scientists to analyse DNA in greater detail.

The breadth of DNA research is immense. For example, as well as medical and healthcare applications, DNA research is used across agriculture, environmental sciences, forensics, biotech industries, evolutionary biology, and even in resolving legal or ethical matters.

The device’s premise is a single operating platform which suits this diversity of applications and industries. At its core lies precision, reliability, and accuracy, which has been made more accessible to a wider range of laboratories through its compact, adaptable design. Like the research itself, improvements in laboratory instrument design and accessibility contribute to our collective advancement.

The project reinforces Victoria’s place within the globally-connected biotech development space. Victorian universities, leading research institutions, and advanced manufacturing form a bedrock from which our design and innovation culture thrives.

While we don’t believe this project needs to be specifically considered for this accolade, its an opportunity to reinforce its approach to sustainability.

As a high-value, high-performance instrument, the Bio-Rad PTC Tempo can be maintained over a long service life.

Its design and modularity allows for common repairs and replacements to be done on-site, reducing service trips or shipping whole instruments back to central servicing points.

Insights into serviceability during the development process highlighted the importance for quick, intuitive, and simple assembly of the outer casings to enable service access to replaceable internal components. A series of interlocking slide features hold plastic panels in place and reduce the need for any permanent or multiple fixing solutions.