CEO of Levitas Bio, Martin Pieprzyk, introduces the company’s innovative approach to solving a critical bottleneck in large-scale single-cell and genomics workflows: upstream sample preparation. As demand for high-throughput single-cell sequencing continues to grow across Pharma companies, CROs, and research institutions, the limitations of traditional sample prep methods - manual, time-consuming, and often biologically disruptive - have become increasingly evident.
Levitas Bio addresses this challenge with a fully automated, touch-free sample preparation platform that dramatically increases throughput while preserving biological integrity. Their technology enables users to process up to 96 samples simultaneously in under 45 minutes, significantly outperforming legacy methods in speed, cost, and data quality.
The core innovation lies in magnetic levitation technology based on principles developed by inventor George Whitesides. By creating precise magnetic density gradients in a 96-well format, the platform can enrich viable cells or nuclei while efficiently removing debris and dead cells. This process maintains cell viability, preserves gene expression profiles, and supports unbiased population representation.
Levitas Bio’s platform supports multiple applications including scRNA-Seq, CITE-Seq, flow cytometry, organoid workflows, and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models. It is compatible with diverse sample types - from PBMCs to solid tumors - and remains effective across a wide input range (from as few as 5,000 to over 1 million cells).
The system’s modular design includes two- and eight-sample units as well as the flagship 96-well platform, alongside tailored reagent kits for nuclei extraction, immune cell selection, myelin removal, and more. Notably, the all-in cost of $10 per sample and the ability to generate up to 500 times more data per sample mark substantial efficiency gains.
Ultimately, Levitas Bio’s technology represents a paradigm shift in upstream sample prep, empowering researchers to scale single-cell and genomics studies without compromising data quality or biological relevance.
