PIXL is developed in collaboration with leading synthetic biology incubators, SynCTI and SynbiCITE, and industrial partners SynthACE.

What is PIXL?

An ultra-reliable and super-easy-to-use microbial colony picker. PIXL automates imaging, colony recognition, colony selection, and picking; from Petri dishes to multiwell plates.

PIXL Colony Picker

How does PIXL work?

PIXL uses the freshly-cut end of a sterile PickupLine to transfer microbial colonies. It eliminates the requirement for washing cycles and the associated chance of contamination.


PIXL has a high colony transfer rate when picking a wide range of bacterias.

>99% Transfer Efficiency

With precision agar surface detection on every pick PIXL will never miss a colony.

Use Multiple Plate Types

Compatible with most standard plate types, PIXL allows you to create custom workflows to suit your lab’s needs.


PIXL multiple plate types

PIXL colony picking - Agar sub-surface piercing

Subsurface Picking with PIXL

Pierce the agar to pick submerged colonies or subsurface hyphae. In normal operation, to avoid cross-contamination, you definitely do not want to violently pierce the agar! However, within the settings, agar piercing can optionally be applied to each of your source and target plates.


Pick Diverse Micro-organisms

Out of the box, PIXL is compatible with even the most diverse microorganisms, without the requirement for additional expensive hardware. 

2D and 3D mixing of the nozzle head ensures enough colony material is picked for inoculation.


PIXL colony picking

Interested in seeing PIXL in action?

A PIXL demo is cooler than your average boring sales presentation, we’ll actually do some remote science with you!