Biotage^® Initiator+ Alstra^™

The Biotage® Initiator+ Alstra™ is a fully automated microwave peptide synthesizer that adds speed to your peptide workflow and gives you the flexibility to perform both small and large scale synthesis.

Microwave irradiation is a fast and precise heating method for the synthesis of peptides at elevated temperatures providing dramatic reductions in synthesis time along with an increase in crude purity and yield compared to conventional synthesis methods. With functionality such as the unique Branches™ tool, preactivation, “edit on the fly” as standard and with options for UV monitoring and microwave assisted organic synthesis (MAOS), the Initiator+ Alstra™ allows you to access different peptide chemistries simply and efficiently, speeding up your workflow. As such the system is the ideal tool for synthesizing interesting peptides, peptoids, PNAs and peptidomimetics.

The flexible reagent setup and modular amino acid racks allow rapid adoption of different coupling strategies such as multiple coupling, and capping reagents to be used during a synthesis. The amino acids or reagents can be placed anywhere on the rack tray.

Flexible synthesis scales from 5 μmol - 2 mmol easily accommodates most laboratory synthesis scale requirements giving rapid access to the scale you need. Peptide synthesis is performed in disposable reactor vials which can be simply inserted and removed without requiring cumbersome disconnection of parts. Digital syringe pumps guarantee accurate dispensing of all reagents, and the dual needle design reduces the possibility of cross contamination. The patented oscillating mixing technology (US 9534011) is superior to nitrogen gas bubbling and ensures homogeneous heat distribution and efficient mixing of reagents up to 2 mmol scale synthesis.

Biotage® Initiator+ Alstra comes with the most user friendly, intuitive and flexible software on the market enabling simplicity of operation using the versatile touch screen interface. The integrated computer with 10” touch screen controls all the instrument functions using either pre-defined or custom methods. Fully automate all cycles and/or use semi-automated operations where the Fmoc deprotection and washing steps are automated and then manually add expensive building blocks. This gives you complete control over all reaction steps. Easily pause and re-start a synthesis to remove samples for monitoring and analysis of intermediate reaction steps if required. The built-in wizard makes programming a synthesis sequence effortless and the calculation table generated provides the quantities of reagents required. This also avoids the need for an external computer, thus reducing the footprint as space is a valuable commodity in today’s research laboratories.

Assigning positions to non-standard/non-natural amino acids is simple and no different to standard amino acids. Using the touch screen simply just drag and drop to the desired position. The pre-installed methods are easily customized and easily changed for different scales for the same vial size. Alternatively, easily write methods from scratch.

Use microwave irradiation and standard reagents to synthesize difficult sequences that are problematic or even impossible to synthesize using conventional methods or just make simple peptides more efficiently.

Branches™ is a unique tool that simplifies the automation of complex peptide modifications. It allows skilled peptide chemists to assign custom methods and enables scheduling and visualization of operations to synthesize cyclic and branched peptides with confidence.

Reduce your reagent and solvent consumption using the robot liquid handler with digital syringe pumps. This also minimizes consumption and waste of expensive building blocks. Save even more by benefiting from the ability to perform synthesis on a small scale from as low as 5 µmol. Better synthesis results in less chromatography runs for an overall greener workflow.