Dayan Lloyd-Hennie, Autolab Manager, describes how HSL’s new Cascadion analyser is supporting the automation agenda and advancing testing for transplant patients.
HSL has always been at the forefront of innovation and automation - as the latest addition to the Halo’s portfolio of technology would confirm. After a lengthy initial testing and training phase, inevitably delayed by Covid, the Cascadion clinical analyser is now live.
Dayan Lloyd-Hennie is responsible for finding new ways to introduce automation across all laboratories. He explained that the latest addition to the impressive portfolio of technology will initially be used to test levels of drugs administered to patients undergoing organ transplants. These patients require complex combinations of drugs that are highly toxic in the wrong doses and so require frequent daily monitoring by the clinical teams and fast turnaround times.
Previous assays used for this required both considerable manual input and specialist expertise.
Being fully automated, Cascadion allows random access of samples and can be operated by less specialist staff.
The advanced technology used in the analyser also reduces the risk of sampling mix ups and produces a greater level of standardisation of analyses.
It’s currently doing at least two runs a day but has capacity to do much more. It also has scope for a wider range of assays and Dayan’s team is looking at using it for additional analysis.
So, as the person charged with automating as many laboratory processes as possible, does Dayan have anything else on his shopping list? “Yes,” he says, “Another Cascadion!”