Immunocytochemistry is Automated: Development of A Robotic Workstation Based Upon the Capillary Action Principle

We report the development of the first automated method for immunocytochemistry using the Code-On Immunology System, an IBM System II driven triaxial robotic slide staining unit. The system uses a unique capillary action design to apply, incubate, and sequentially remove reagents from planar glass microscope slide surfaces. The instrument is capable of analyzing 60 slides for 30 different antigens in 2 hours and 35 minutes or less. The system performs complete immunoassays from dewaxing to nuclear staining and saves over 80% of organic reagents and up to 50% of immunochemicals. The importance of automation to the future of immunocytochemistry and molecular pathology is discussed.