Vitens Automates Drinking Water Testing on ML STARlet with KingFisher Presto Integration

The ongoing assessment of drinking water quality is essential in ensuring human safety and health. Drinking water fecal contamination is routinely determined by the presence of gut bacteria such as E. coli and Enterococci. The current standard for water testing is culture-based. Vitens laboratory analyzes drinking water samples, also with other more innovative and highly sensitive techniques like Reverse Transcriptase Quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). In the Netherlands, the RT-qPCR for E. coli is already ISO 16140-validated and widely used by drinking water laboratories.

However, efficient RNA extraction from samples remains a prerequisite to detect a single colony forming unit (1 CFU) in 100 mL of water. Here, we demonstrate that RNA extraction can be reliably automated, using the Hamilton STARlet with an integrated KingFisher Presto device.

Reproduceable
KingFisher Presto's proven magnetic-particle extraction technology integrated into an Hamilton STARlet allows RNA extraction on a level with manual RNA extraction methods for fecal drinking water contamination detection.

Cost-efficient
Reducing manual work and freeing laboratory staff from tedious work offers cost savings.

Effective
Higher capacity of simultanously processed samples offers higher throughput.

Download the Application Note to read on.