MiniBeadbeater-96 safely disrupts up to 128 samples of spores, microorganisms, plant or animal tissue, or soil samples at one time. Using the same process as its predecessors, the MiniBeadbeater-1 and -8, one or two deep well microtiter plates containing sample and a large number of tiny ceramic beads are violently shaken for 2-3 minutes to achieve 90+ percent cell disruption. Plates and beads are disposable, thus making the method useful for PAGE, PCR and probe applications where cross-contamination between samples cannot be tolerated. Compatible with phenol, Gu-SCN or various commercial kit solutions, RNA/DNA is quickly recovered. Yields are kept high by performing the cell disruption and nucleic acid extraction simultaneously.