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singerinstruments.bsky.social
Singer Instruments
@singerinstruments.bsky.social
14 followers 46 following 44 posts
Singer Instruments (est.1934) make world class laboratory automation to accelerate microbiological research for scientists who want to make the world a better place. Employee-owned and UK-based, we provide reliable solutions for global scientists.
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singerinstruments.bsky.social
The volume of baby poop in Prof. Lindsay Hall’s freezers is incredible. 💩
Lindsay is highly regarded in human microbiome research and a leader in the infant gut #microbiome space. She and Prof. @jameschong.bsky.social will be delivering you key insights on how to culture the unculturable.
Prof. Lindsay Hall, University of Birmingham. Expert at uncovering the secrets of the infant gut microbiome. Join our webinar to learn: How to overcome cultivation bottlenecks Techniques for uncovering new insights The latest updates on Lindsay's Research. The Dark Matter of the Microbiome How culturing the unculturable can help us solve real world problems. 2PM February 24th 2026 with Profs. Lindsay Hall & James Chong
February 11, 2026 at 4:55 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Our mission is powered by the brilliant women on our team. 🧪
Today, we’re celebrating their contributions to science while advocating for the pay, recognition, and career equity they deserve. We couldn't do it without them!

#WomenInScienceDay #WomenInSTEM
February 11, 2026 at 12:52 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
What’s hiding in the "Dark Matter" of the #microbiome?
We’re hosting research experts Prof. Lindsay Hall & Prof. James Chong to dive into: 🧫 Overcoming cultivation hurdles 🦠 New insights from human waste samples 🧪 Research strategies from the experts
Register here: tinyurl.com/xr58eb28
#LabLife
Image of the PIXL colony picker hovering over a plate of colonies. below is the following text: Webinar | The Dark Matter of the microbiome. 2pm February 24th 2026 with Professors Lindsay Hall and James Chong. How culturing the unculturable can help us solve real world problems. One poo at a time. bottom right is a QR code.
February 9, 2026 at 4:14 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
High-throughput synthetic genomics comes to the Earlham Institute! 🧬

Prof. Patrick Cai shared updates on the Sc2.0 project to rewrite the yeast genome from scratch. An outstanding example of using automation like the PIXL in synthetic biology.

#ALife #MicroSky #SynBio
Patrick Cai stands in a casual suit on stage giving a seminar talk. behind him is a presentation on the intersecting emerging technologies including an image of the PIXL colony picker that he uses for automating the Sc2.0 project.
February 9, 2026 at 1:04 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Who wants to struggle with ImageJ thresholds? Simple tools fall short on irregular or filamentous morphologies. Automatically detect, quantify and isolate a diverse array of colonies with PIXL Max AI colony detection & morphological classification - perfect for the #microbiome. No need to optimise.
Half the image is a closeup of filamentous colonies outline in green (in detail) and circular colonies outlined in purple. On the right is a white legend stating All features (red tick) 12, Circular (purple tick) 5 colony cluster 0, filamentous shape (green tick) 7, irregular 0, punctate 0.
February 6, 2026 at 1:43 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
We're a finalist for the Somerset Business Awards 2026 Employer of the Year!
Thank you to everyone a who's worked so hard this year and especially to those who spoke to the judges about what life is like as a certified NERD 🤖.
#SBA2026 #Somerset #Business
Somerset Business Awards 2026 Finalist. Including the pink/purple ombre leaf logo.
February 5, 2026 at 3:56 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Project Manager Ayo and Scientist Emmy recently participated in the Castle School's mock interview session. The experience provided students with a realistic taste of professional life through targeted questions on teamwork and resilience.

#STEM #Outreach #Education
Collage of photos depicting teenage students in green uniform from The castle school sitting across a small square table being interviewed by working professionals.
February 5, 2026 at 9:22 AM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Join the nation's biggest mental health conversation. Talking helps reduce stigma and can make people feel comfortable enough to seek help when they need it. MIND is encouraging us to brave the big conversations, the ones that still feel unspoken. Let someone know they're heard this #TimeToTalkDay.
We can talk about who won the Traitors But can we talk about life on a therapy waiting list? Brave the big talk. Image of a black bob wig with solid bangs on a bright pink background.
February 4, 2026 at 3:39 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
The most expensive lab instrument🤖? The one gathering dust because only the retired tech knew the “dark art” of using it. We build tech that you can actually use. You can master 90% of PIXL Max’s functionality in under 10 minutes!
Watch the full video here: tinyurl.com/95jbjekv

#microbiology 🧪
Why should robots be simple video thumbnail. An interview with Harry Singer - CEO of Singer Instruments.
February 4, 2026 at 10:26 AM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
#Microbiome legends Prof. Lindsay Hall & James Chong are diving deep into their gut microbiome research strategies. We’ll be tackling cultivation bottlenecks and investigating techniques to scale #Microbiology insights from human waste. 💩🧫

Join us here: tinyurl.com/xr58eb28
Webinar: The Dark matter of the Microbiome. 2 pm February 24th 2026. Profs. James Chong & Lindsay Hall will be speaking on How culturing the unculturable can help us solve real world problems. One poo at a time.
February 3, 2026 at 4:16 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Colony detection is easy when you have eyes - but computers have algorithms that look for patterns 🧫. Microbiology almost never fits a perfect pattern. PIXL Max AI colony detection 🤖, with its high definition camera, can isolate colonies down to 0.2 mm and classify their morphology!

#MicroSky
An image of a petri dish containing colonies, captured on PIXL Max. Thousands of colonies on the image have been recognised by the AI colony detection algorithm
February 3, 2026 at 2:06 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Speed doesn’t matter, unless you’re the bottleneck in a high-throughput lab🤖. We’ve spent the last year quietly slaving away to please the speed queens with the PIXL Max at 3000 colonies/hour🦠🧫. Of course we added a few side quests as well - what else is new?

#MicroSky #LabAutomation #SciSky
January 30, 2026 at 2:56 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
It's been <1 week of PIXL Max, and WOW!
Published twice - thanks Lab Manager & the Microbiologist
700+ emails - our inbox is buzzing 🧫
1000s LinkedIn impressions - we see you watching 🤖
1 big celebratory pub sesh - essential to any Singer launch. 🍻
Watch PIXL Max speed along: tinyurl.com/2ewtpff3
Automated Colony Picking with PIXL Max
YouTube video by Singer Instruments
www.youtube.com
January 29, 2026 at 3:13 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
My plate didn’t grow? Now I have to do it all over again…AGAIN! 98% transfer efficiency sounds great, but 99.78% is even better when you’re picking the entire 🧪CLiP 2 mutant library🦠
(71, 700 colonies). It’s the difference between 1434 missed colonies, and only 148 missed. 🤖
6 agar SBS format PlusPlates containing arrays of 384 Chlamydomonas colonies each. These were created by automated colony picker PIXL. Some of the colonies have grown to about 1 mm diameter, others have not grown.
January 28, 2026 at 12:05 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Pick any colony at 98% transfer efficiency 🤖 - but only with these specific pins at £££/pin. Absolutely NOT! One Pinpoint Picking Technology to rule them all. Bacteriophage, Aspergillus, Chlamydomonas, and so many different types of fungi all with one sterile picking filament!🦠🧪🧫
PIXL Max, precision colony picker, uses 3/6 of it's picking heads to isolate from a dense and diverse agar plate.
January 26, 2026 at 11:09 AM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Introducing PIXL Max🤖: our fastest automated colony picker yet with AI powered detection and analysis of microbes and zones of inhibition and super hi-res optics to detect the tiniest details of your colony morphologies.
Faster, Smarter, Precision Colony Picking PIXL MAX (logo) 3000 colonies per hour AI intelligence Advanced Detection Discover Here: QR code (bottom right hand corner) All on a black background, written in white , except the PIXL Max logo which is in Singer Red. The bottom left hnad corner contains an image of the PIXL Max colony picker. Thisis a large white box with a black sliding door. The white box is covered in artist impressions of colonies in varying morphologies.
January 23, 2026 at 10:21 AM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
New year new me - that’s what we all say. Looking forward to a VERY exciting 2026! What could possibly be around the corner - Can you find the hint in our recent posts?

#MicroSky #LabAutomation #Microbiology 🧪🤖🧫🧬
"New product, Coming soon, January 2026" In the background is a highly zoomed image which clearly contains a petri dish growing green streaked colonies on black agar. Behind, partially in frame, are a deep well plate and a 96 multi-well plate. The top third of the image is taken up by a motion-blurred red section with two black "tubes"? hanging beneath going out of frame.
January 19, 2026 at 2:37 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
We designed our colony picker PIXL in collaboration with SynCTI and a few other synthetic biologists buddies. Our scientist friends needed to prioritise efficiency and precision to help them decode complex biology through colony isolation at their lab bench.

#SyntheticBiology #Microbiology 🤖🧪🧫
Two women in Burgandy lab coats stand at a lab bench with computer screens in front of them and a PIXL (Automated colony picker) in between. The PIXL is glowing blue for fluorescence detection. There is a quote " PIXL is trustworthy, sturdy and gets the job done reliably and fast" from the Australian Human Microbiome Biobank. Kevin roy stands in front of an integrated PIXL set up with a robot arm and plate hotel. A robot arm waits in front of the automatic door to pick up a plate from PIXL, the automatic colony picker. The pinning head is currently picking a colony from the source bay.
January 16, 2026 at 11:43 AM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Our CEO, Harry Singer is visiting the Houses of Parliament today on an important mission: consulting on the proposed changes to UK immigration policy. These changes could mean that the UK economy loses highly skilled workers to other countries with more flexible immigration policies.

#STEM
January 15, 2026 at 2:47 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Exmoor is a world renowned hub for #biotech and engineering companies. As such we feel responsible for inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers. We loved building spaghetti towers, extracting strawberry DNA and hosting mock interviews in 2025. What’s your favourite #STEM activity? 🧪
A primary school classroom with a small group of kids sat on red mats in takes up a majority of the image. The kids are dressed for World bookday - a Snow White, a Tinkerbell, a Teenage mutant ninja turtle, a Witch, a boy in dinosaur PJs and many other outfits. In the background a woman sits on a chair reading from a book to the group.
January 12, 2026 at 4:59 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Our automated colony picker, PIXL, has isolated an estimated 60 million colonies across 100+ labs in 2025! Anthony Borneman of the AWRI uses it to explore adaptive evolution, traditional breeding and the microbiome of Australia’s vineyards. #Yeast #Research #MicroSky #MicrobiomeSky 🧫🧪🤖
"Using the PIXL, we picked tens of thousands of colonies - it would be impossible to do that by hand - and we ended up discovering hundreds of different yeast species from around Australia." Dr Anthony Borneman - Research Manager at the AWRI. Photo shows Anthony, with lab glasses, stood in a lab with green cabinets and very full shelves but clear benchtops.
January 12, 2026 at 1:30 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
Dr Jane Usher and her student Catrin study antifungal drug resistance in fungal pathogens like Candida glabrata 🧫🧪. With Synthetic Genetic Array screening on ROTOR+🤖, they identified new therapies and targets. Here’s the paper: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

#Yeast #MicroSky #WomenInScience
January 12, 2026 at 9:50 AM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
“Big data are nice, but the problem is that we don’t know what most of the genes do. You can’t predict physiology based on genomes alone.” #MicrobiomeSky legend Prof. Willem M. de Vos spoke to us about some of the challenges of research today. 🧪 www.singerinstruments.com/resource/cha...
Profile photo of Professor Willem M. de Vos. A middle aged gentleman with short curly white hear and glasses giving a Mona Lisa smile. In the background are Duran bottles on shelves in the lab - it's all blurred out.
January 9, 2026 at 4:54 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
#HiSciSky We’re not the interesting story: scientists are. We want to celebrate your breakthroughs, shout about STEM and occasionally post a robot🤖. If you want us to shout about your #Microbiology research - tag us in your post. 🧪
Nobel prize winner Paul Nurse stands in his lab with a student. They stand in between two benches and in front of a window that shows nothing but white light. Paul is dressed smartly in a shirt and black trousers. The student is female with long black hair and a beige cardigan. On the bench is an MSM400 tetrad dissection robot.
January 9, 2026 at 4:09 PM
singerinstruments.bsky.social
#HiSciSky 🧪 We’ve watched the scientific community move to BlueSky in droves - so we thought we’d join you. We’re a team of engineers, scientists and other nerds obsessed with making precise, reliable & easy-to-use lab automation 🤖.
The Staff of Singer Instruments have a BBQ party outside under a canvas. Many people sitting on wooden picnic benches cheering and clapping at something appearing from the bottom right hand side.
January 9, 2026 at 2:29 PM