1. © 2009 ARTEL Quantifying the Impact of Operator Error in Pipetting Speaker: George Rodrigues

2. © 2009 ARTEL

3. Air Displacement

4. © 2009 ARTEL Physical Effects

5. © 2009 ARTEL Physical Effects

6. © 2009 ARTEL Physical Effects

7. © 2009 ARTEL Physical Effects

8. © 2009 ARTEL Accuracy & precision accurate, precise accurate, imprecise inaccurate, precise inaccurate, imprecise

9. © 2009 ARTEL Performance in a controlled environment P20 set to 5uL Each Dot = 10 Data Points Our QC Lab: 50% Humidity / 21°C Box = Manufacturer Specs: ± 3% Inaccuracy / 0.9% CV

10. © 2009 ARTEL Achievable performance outside a controlled environment P20 set to 5uL Each Dot = 10 Data Points Humidity 20%/ Temperature 21°C Box = Manufacturer Specs: ± 3% Inaccuracy / 0.9% CV Downward trending: As humidity decreases so does volume

11. © 2009 ARTEL Need for training 15.00% 10.00% 5.00 % -5.00 % -10.00% -15.00% 5.00 %10.00%15.00%20.00% Imprecision (%) Inaccuracy (%) 47 Laboratory Technicians Each Dot = 5 Data Point Known calibrated 20uL Pipette set to 10 µL

12. © 2009 ARTEL The “10 Tips”

13. © 2009 ARTEL Goal of experiment To validate whether the 10 Tips really work. To quantify impact of each of the ten tips, so that the most important ones can be stressed during training. To determine whether the 10 Tips can account for observed user variation. (Or are other factors at play?)

14. © 2009 ARTEL Unequilibrated pipette tips

15. © 2009 ARTEL Tip wiping

16. © 2009 ARTEL Reverse mode

17. © 2009 ARTEL Differing pause times

18. © 2009 ARTEL 20 uL Pipette @ 20 µL- Imprecision

19. © 2009 ARTEL 20 uL Pipette @ 20 µL- Inaccuracy

20. © 2009 ARTEL 100 uL Pipette @ 20 µL- Imprecision

21. © 2009 ARTEL 100 uL Pipette @ 20 µL- Inaccuracy

22. © 2009 ARTEL Need for Training 15.00% 10.00% 5.00 % -5.00 % -10.00% -15.00% 5.00 %10.00%15.00%20.00% Imprecision (%) Inaccuracy (%) 47 Laboratory Technicians Each Dot = 5 Data Point Known Good 20uL Pipette set to 10 µL

23. © 2009 ARTEL 100μL Pipette at 20μL – All Data

24. © 2009 ARTEL 20μL Pipette at 20μL – All Data

25. © 2009 ARTEL Need for Training 15.00% 10.00% 5.00 % -5.00 % -10.00% -15.00% 5.00 %10.00%15.00%20.00% Imprecision (%) Inaccuracy (%) 47 Laboratory Technicians Each Dot = 5 Data Point Known Good 20uL Pipette set to 10 µL

26. © 2009 ARTEL Conclusions The 10 Tips sometimes produced statistically significant improvements, and never made things worse. The errors observed in this experimental work are much smaller that the user errors seen with untrained users in the field. We did not test the effects of multiple errors in one pipetting.

27. © 2009 ARTEL Future Work Video recording of users to identify the actual practices (or combinations of practices) that are causing inaccuracy and imprecision.