Monday, August 31, 2026

In The Lab: 65 Years of the Marburg Pipette – How a Small Invention Changed Laboratory Work

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65 Years of the Marburg Pipette – How a Small Invention Changed Laboratory Work


65 Years Since the Marburg Pipette Entered the Laboratory


Anyone working in a molecular biology laboratory today hardly gives it a second thought: pick up the pipette, attach a tip, set the volume, aspirate the liquid, and dispense it again. It is a routine movement repeated countless times throughout a working day.

The piston-operated pipette has become as much a part of the modern laboratory as reaction tubes, centrifuges, or disposable gloves.

Yet this apparent normality is surprisingly recent.

In 2026, the Marburg pipette marks 65 years since its commercial introduction in 1961. Its origins, however, go back several years further: Heinrich Schnitger filed the patent for the underlying design on May 3, 1957.

The result was a practical solution to one of the most repetitive problems in laboratory work: transferring microliter volumes accurately and reproducibly.

When Scientists Still Pipetted by Mouth

To understand the significance of this invention, it is worth looking at laboratory work before the modern micropipette.

Well into the twentieth century, liquids were commonly transferred using glass pipettes, with the liquid often drawn into the pipette by mouth. The user carefully aspirated the liquid to the desired graduation mark and then controlled its retention and release by regulating the airflow.

From today’s perspective, this seems almost unimaginable.

At the time, however, mouth pipetting was part of routine laboratory work.

Biochemist Martin Klingenberg later recalled that when he joined Theodor Bücher’s group at the Institute of Physiological Chemistry at the University of Marburg in 1956, mouth pipetting was still the standard method used in the laboratory.

And scientists were certainly not working only with harmless saline solutions.

Laboratory personnel handled biological samples, blood and serum, microorganisms, chemicals, and in some cases radioactive substances. If liquid was accidentally drawn too far into the pipette, it could come into direct contact with the mouth and mucous membranes.

This was not merely a theoretical risk.

Historical studies of laboratory-acquired infections repeatedly identified mouth pipetting as a potential route of exposure. International reports also show that the practice did not disappear immediately once mechanical pipetting devices became available. Mouth pipetting continued to be documented during the 1960s and even into the 1970s.

How distant this laboratory world now seems became particularly clear to me during a lecture just some years ago. The lecturer recalled that, earlier in his career, he had still pipetted solutions containing ethidium bromide by mouth.

For scientists of my generation, a story like that already sounds as though it belongs to an entirely different era of laboratory work.

Heinrich Schnitger and an Everyday Laboratory Problem

It was within this scientific environment that the German physician Heinrich Schnitger worked.

Schnitger joined the Institute of Physiological Chemistry at the University of Marburg as a research associate in 1957. His biochemical work required the repeated and precise transfer of very small volumes of liquid.

The glass pipettes available at the time were cumbersome. Many had to be individually produced and calibrated, pipetting required considerable concentration and time, and the glassware had to be thoroughly cleaned after use.

Schnitger began looking for a better solution.

He developed a pipetting device built around a spring-loaded piston and a replaceable plastic tip. A defined piston movement allowed small volumes of liquid to be aspirated and dispensed reproducibly without requiring the user to draw the sample into the pipette by mouth.

On May 3, 1957, Schnitger filed a patent application for his invention under the title:

“Device for the rapid and precise pipetting of small quantities of liquid.”

The patent already describes the core mechanical principle still recognizable in modern micropipettes: controlled piston displacement, defined volume stops, and exchangeable plastic tips.

From Marburg to Laboratories Around the World

The Hamburg-based medical technology company Netheler & Hinz, which would later become Eppendorf, acquired the exclusive licensing rights and further developed Schnitger’s design for commercial production.

In 1961, the so-called Marburg pipette entered the market.

Laboratories now had a practical device for transferring microliter volumes quickly and reproducibly.

Modern pipettes are, of course, considerably more sophisticated than their early predecessors. Adjustable volumes have become standard, accuracy and ergonomics have improved, multichannel pipettes allow several samples to be handled simultaneously, and electronic pipettes can perform more complex liquid-handling procedures. Automated liquid-handling systems have extended the same principle to entire experimental workflows.

Yet the fundamental problem has remained the same:

A precisely defined amount of liquid must be transferred from point A to point B as accurately and reproducibly as possible.

In applications such as PCR, DNA sequencing, enzyme assays, and quantitative biomarker analyses, even relatively small deviations in volume can affect experimental results.

For this reason, regular performance checks, maintenance, and, where necessary, calibration remain essential parts of proper pipette use today.

And What About the “Eppi”?

The history of modern microliter work is closely associated with another familiar object found on laboratory benches around the world.

In 1963, Eppendorf introduced the first Eppendorf Tubes.

These small plastic reaction vessels provided a convenient way to mix, store, and later centrifuge the increasingly small sample volumes handled with micropipettes. The product name eventually took on a life of its own. Even today, terms such as ‘Eppendorf tube’ — and colloquially ‘Eppi’ or ‘Eppi tube’ in many laboratories — are used for small microcentrifuge tubes, sometimes regardless of the actual manufacturer. A brand name became part of laboratory vocabulary.

65 Years Later

Sixty-five years have now passed since the commercial introduction of the Marburg pipette. That is roughly the span of an entire professional lifetime. During those six and a half decades, molecular biology, genetics, and biotechnology have developed in ways that would have been difficult to imagine in 1961. PCR, modern DNA sequencing, genomics, genome editing, and numerous diagnostic techniques all depend on the reliable manipulation of very small volumes of liquid. The pipette itself rarely receives much attention. It is not an impressive piece of large-scale laboratory equipment, and in scientific papers it generally disappears somewhere within the Materials and Methods section. Yet a remarkable proportion of modern experimental science begins with exactly the same simple sequence:

Attach the tip. Set the volume. Pipette.

Perhaps that is also one of the more interesting lessons in the history of the Marburg pipette. Scientific progress does not arise exclusively from major theoretical breakthroughs. Sometimes it begins when someone looks at an awkward, repetitive, everyday task and asks a very simple question:

Could this be done better?

Heinrich Schnitger asked that question almost seven decades ago. His answer can now be found millions of times over on laboratory benches around the world. And so, on the 65th anniversary of the Marburg pipette, one question remains: What seemingly small invention is being developed somewhere in a laboratory today that scientists 65 years from now will regard as just as ordinary and indispensable as we regard the pipette today?

In this Sense: To the Future!  P.S: Stay calm and keep pipetting. ;)

Sources and Further Reading

Spotted an error, outdated information, or a newer source that changes the picture? Let me know in the comments or get in touch. Science keeps moving, and this blog should too.

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