GeneQuant pro From Biochrom

Our lab also has the GeneQuant, a forerunner of the GeneQuant pro. Both machines are easy to use and give nice, consistent results. The GeneQuant pro has a new, sleek design and can be ordered in a variety of colors. The machine came packaged well and was very easy to install. It was ready to use almost instantly. The machine should be placed on a solid surface, but only requires about one square foot of space.

The display panel is back lit and has a touch pad with 28 keys. The User’s Manual has a concise but complete reference page for the utility keys and reading keys, explaining the function of each. This makes is very simple to set up the instrument for your particular measurement.

Once the instrument is turned on, it only takes a few minutes for initialization and calibration then you can set up the instrument. As with most any spectrophotometer, you must have a blank ready with your dilution solution. After the machine reads this reference you may begin measuring your samples. The machine only takes one sample at a time unlike some machines where you can set up several to be read at once.

The user can determine what type of concentration is given (ug/ml, ng/ul, ug/ul, pmol/ul) which saves you the trouble of calculating those values.

I have not utilized all of the features yet, but I have taken measurements for DNA, RNA, cDNA, and bacterial cells. I had some trouble getting results with the bacterial cells, but I think that was primarily due to the type and size of the bacteria that was being measured and not due to any error on the part of the machine. As I have said, the machine is very easy to set-up, but measuring cDNA does require a slightly more complicated process. You must choose the ‘oligo’ setting and then change the default factor. This is all explained clearly in the manual. I have not used the GeneQuant pro for protein measurements, but conveniently it can be used for the Bradford, Biuret and BCA protein assays.