What is synthetic biology?
Synthetic biology is a broad term that refers to the manipulation of genetic pathways to harness the power of existing biological systems in novel ways (often to manufacture molecules or proteins). Synthetic biology applies principles that are derived from engineering, specifically design-build-test-learn cycles, to biological systems. By leveraging high-throughput workflows, synthetic biologists can accelerate this process.
Picking the right colonies
For the synthetic biologist, biological building blocks are often generated from bacteria. The design-build-test process is utilized in order to engineer these building blocks. This often requires screening and picking colonies of interest.
Traditionally, colony picking is performed manually, using sterile pipette tips, toothpicks, or inoculation loops, which is a slow, labor-intensive, and time-consuming process. Synthetic biology research can, therefore, benefit greatly from the flexibility and throughput of automated colony pickers. Not only will automated colony pickers make the entire process quicker (picking up to 3,000 clones per hour), but the results are more consistent and reliable, increasing the quality of the data produced.
Some of the benefits of automated colony picking for synthetic biology:
- Enables higher throughput while minimizing manual labor
- Provides consistent, objective colony picking instead of subjective, manual picking
- Accommodates a broad range of different applications
- Electronic data tracking allows for well-documented data control
A typical microbial colony picker workflow

Microbial colony picker
Automated microbial colony picking systems, like our QPix 400 series, offer the unique option to simultaneously detect colonies and quantify fluorescent markers in a pre-screening step before picking.
Pick colonies accurately and effciently using organism-specific pins that maximize material transfer
- Avoid cross contamination with a reliable pin sterilization process
Support a range of applications such as high-throughput cloning, library screening, strain engineering, and CRISPR editing

The QPix can be integrated with other lab components such as incubators, liquid handlers, and robotics for a fully automated work cell. Our customization and automation team can tailor QPix colony pickers and deploy the integration, or provide an open API and software support for the integration process.
QPix™ 400 Series Microbial Colony Pickers
Other great resources
Resources for Synthetic Biology
Publications
What an innovation centre means for 3D biology
What an innovation centre means for 3D biology
In April 2021, we launched our Organoid Innovation Centre (OIC), an initiative designed to help scientists leverage the potential of 3D biology throughout the drug discovery process. On our…
eBook
How to Implement Colony Picking Workflows with Automation
How to Implement Colony Picking Workflows with Automation
Colony picking represents a powerful tool within the workflow of mammalian cell line development and the study of microbiology.
Blog
Synthetic Biology Automation: Five Tips to Improve Your Molecular Cloning Process
Synthetic Biology Automation: Five Tips to Improve Your Molecular Cloning Process
One of the biggest global concerns is our excessive use of resources and its undeniable impact on the environment. In particular, manufacturing processes require enormous amounts of…
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COVID-19 Timeline: Diagnostics, Vaccines, and Therapeutic Antibody Development
COVID-19 Timeline: Diagnostics, Vaccines, and Therapeutic Antibody Development
Global research efforts are focused on understanding the SARS-CoV-2 virus in order to develop potential therapies for COVID-19. Join us as we explore a scientific timeline of key…
Brochure
Clone screening solutions
Clone screening solutions
Advance your microbial and mammalian clone screening with proven, automated technologies
Blog
The evolution of CHO cells’ role in cell line development
The evolution of CHO cells’ role in cell line development
Since the first approval of recombinant insulin and human growth hormone in the early 1980s, a multitude of recombinant protein therapeutics have been approved by regulatory…
Flyer
Streamline your synthetic biology workflow with solutions from Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and Molecular Devices
Streamline your synthetic biology workflow with solutions from Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and Molecular Devices
Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary science with the potential to impact academic and industrial applications including the creation of novel therapeutics and vaccines, plant science a…
Brochure
ClonePix 2 Mammalian Colony Picker
ClonePix 2 Mammalian Colony Picker
Redefine clone screening and selection with transformative cell line development workflows.
Blog
Get to know our Field Applications Scientist: Dwayne Carter
Get to know our Field Applications Scientist: Dwayne Carter
Dwayne Carter gives us a taste of 3D bioprinting, clone screening, and Caribbean cuisine Dwayne Carter is a cell biologist and educator who joined Molecular Devices in November 2020…
Blog
Life sciences technology predictions for 2021
Life sciences technology predictions for 2021
For over 40 years, Molecular Devices has been at the forefront of technological advances which have contributed to significant scientific breakthroughs. To kick off the new year, we…
Brochure
QPix colony picking series
QPix colony picking series
QPix™ systems earned a well-deserved reputation for performance and reliability during the race to sequence the human genome with the Human Genome Project, and continues to support important…
Brochure
QPix Custom Microbial Colony Pickers
QPix Custom Microbial Colony Pickers
The Edinburgh Genome Foundry (EGF) is dedicated to automated design and assembly of large DNA constructs using a fully automated robotic platform. They needed an automated colony picker that…
Infographic
Colony picking in synthetic biology
Colony picking in synthetic biology
See how automated colony pickers can speed up the process for synthetic biology research.
Application Note
Synthetic metagenomics: converting digital information back to biology
Synthetic metagenomics: converting digital information back to biology
Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (DoE JGI) have developed synthetic metagenomic processes supported by high throughput screening technologies, to…