Laboratory automation

Last updated
Automated laboratory equipment GammaGIF.gif
Automated laboratory equipment

Laboratory automation is a multi-disciplinary strategy to research, develop, optimize and capitalize on technologies in the laboratory that enable new and improved processes. Laboratory automation professionals are academic, commercial and government researchers, scientists and engineers who conduct research and develop new technologies to increase productivity, elevate experimental data quality, reduce lab process cycle times, or enable experimentation that otherwise would be impossible.

Contents

The most widely known application of laboratory automation technology is laboratory robotics. More generally, the field of laboratory automation comprises many different automated laboratory instruments, devices (the most common being autosamplers), software algorithms, and methodologies used to enable, expedite and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of scientific research in laboratories.

The application of technology in today's laboratories is required to achieve timely progress and remain competitive. Laboratories devoted to activities such as high-throughput screening, combinatorial chemistry, automated clinical and analytical testing, diagnostics, large-scale biorepositories, and many others, would not exist without advancements in laboratory automation.

An autosampler for liquid or gaseous samples based on a microsyringe Microsyringe based autosampler.gif
An autosampler for liquid or gaseous samples based on a microsyringe

Some universities offer entire programs that focus on lab technologies. For example, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis offers a graduate program devoted to Laboratory Informatics. Also, the Keck Graduate Institute in California offers a graduate degree with an emphasis on development of assays, instrumentation and data analysis tools required for clinical diagnostics, high-throughput screening, genotyping, microarray technologies, proteomics, imaging and other applications.

History

At least since 1875 there have been reports of automated devices for scientific investigation. [1] These first devices were mostly built by scientists themselves in order to solve problems in the laboratory. After the second world war, companies started to provide automated equipment with greater and greater complexity.

Automation steadily spread in laboratories through the 20th century, but then a revolution took place: in the early 1980s, the first fully automated laboratory was opened by Dr. Masahide Sasaki. [2] [3] In 1993, Dr. Rod Markin at the University of Nebraska Medical Center created one of the world's first clinical automated laboratory management systems. [4] In the mid-1990s, he chaired a standards group called the Clinical Testing Automation Standards Steering Committee (CTASSC) of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, [5] [6] which later evolved into an area committee of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. [7] In 2004, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and more than 300 nationally recognized leaders in academia, industry, government, and the public completed the NIH Roadmap to accelerate medical discovery to improve health. The NIH Roadmap clearly identifies technology development as a mission critical factor in the Molecular Libraries and Imaging Implementation Group (see the first theme – New Pathways to Discovery – at https://web.archive.org/web/20100611171315/http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/).

Despite the success of Dr. Sasaki laboratory and others of the kind, the multi-million dollar cost of such laboratories has prevented adoption by smaller groups. [8] This is all more difficult because devices made by different manufactures often cannot communicate with each other. However, recent advances based on the use of scripting languages like Autoit have made possible the integration of equipment from different manufacturers. [9] Using this approach, many low-cost electronic devices, including open-source devices, [10] become compatible with common laboratory instruments.

Some startups such as Emerald Cloud Lab and Strateos provide on-demand and remote laboratory access on a commercial scale. A 2017 study indicates that these commercial-scale, fully integrated automated laboratories can improve reproducibility and transparency in basic biomedical experiments, and that over nine in ten biomedical papers use methods currently available through these groups. [11]

Low-cost laboratory automation

A large obstacle to the implementation of automation in laboratories has been its high cost. Many laboratory instruments are very expensive. This is justifiable in many cases, as such equipment can perform very specific tasks employing cutting-edge technology. However, there are devices employed in the laboratory that are not highly technological but still are very expensive. This is the case of many automated devices, which perform tasks that could easily be done by simple and low-cost devices like simple robotic arms, [12] [13] [14] universal (open-source) electronic modules, [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] , Lego Mindstorms [20] , or 3D printers.

So far, using such low-cost devices together with laboratory equipment was considered to be very difficult. However, it has been demonstrated that such low-cost devices can substitute without problems the standard machines used in laboratory. [12] [21] [22] It can be anticipated that more laboratories will take advantage of this new reality as low-cost automation is very attractive for laboratories.

A technology that enables the integration of any machine regardless of their brand is scripting, more specifically, scripting involving the control of mouse clicks and keyboard entries, like AutoIt. By timing clicks and keyboard inputs, different software interfaces controlling different devices can be perfectly synchronized. [9] [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Automation</span> Use of various control systems for operating equipment

Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines. Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic devices, and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes, and ships typically use combinations of all of these techniques. The benefit of automation includes labor savings, reducing waste, savings in electricity costs, savings in material costs, and improvements to quality, accuracy, and precision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home automation</span> Building automation for a home

Home automation or domotics is building automation for a home. A home automation system will monitor and/or control home attributes such as lighting, climate, entertainment systems, and appliances. It may also include home security such as access control and alarm systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital microfluidics</span>

Digital microfluidics (DMF) is a platform for lab-on-a-chip systems that is based upon the manipulation of microdroplets. Droplets are dispensed, moved, stored, mixed, reacted, or analyzed on a platform with a set of insulated electrodes. Digital microfluidics can be used together with analytical analysis procedures such as mass spectrometry, colorimetry, electrochemical, and electrochemiluminescense.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laboratory robotics</span> Using robots in biology or chemistry labs

Laboratory robotics is the act of using robots in biology, chemistry or engineering labs. For example, pharmaceutical companies employ robots to move biological or chemical samples around to synthesize novel chemical entities or to test pharmaceutical value of existing chemical matter. Advanced laboratory robotics can be used to completely automate the process of science, as in the Robot Scientist project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High-throughput screening</span> Drug discovery technique

High-throughput screening (HTS) is a method for scientific discovery especially used in drug discovery and relevant to the fields of biology, materials science and chemistry. Using robotics, data processing/control software, liquid handling devices, and sensitive detectors, high-throughput screening allows a researcher to quickly conduct millions of chemical, genetic, or pharmacological tests. Through this process one can quickly recognize active compounds, antibodies, or genes that modulate a particular biomolecular pathway. The results of these experiments provide starting points for drug design and for understanding the noninteraction or role of a particular location.

A lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single integrated circuit of only millimeters to a few square centimeters to achieve automation and high-throughput screening. LOCs can handle extremely small fluid volumes down to less than pico-liters. Lab-on-a-chip devices are a subset of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices and sometimes called "micro total analysis systems" (µTAS). LOCs may use microfluidics, the physics, manipulation and study of minute amounts of fluids. However, strictly regarded "lab-on-a-chip" indicates generally the scaling of single or multiple lab processes down to chip-format, whereas "µTAS" is dedicated to the integration of the total sequence of lab processes to perform chemical analysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open-source hardware</span> Hardware from the open-design movement

Open-source hardware (OSH) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by this open-source culture movement and apply a like concept to a variety of components. It is sometimes, thus, referred to as FOSH. The term usually means that information about the hardware is easily discerned so that others can make it – coupling it closely to the maker movement. Hardware design, in addition to the software that drives the hardware, are all released under free/libre terms. The original sharer gains feedback and potentially improvements on the design from the FOSH community. There is now significant evidence that such sharing can drive a high return on investment for the scientific community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liquid handling robot</span>

A liquid handling robot is used to automate workflows in life science laboratories. It is a robot that dispenses a selected quantity of reagent, samples or other liquid to a designated container.

High-content screening (HCS), also known as high-content analysis (HCA) or cellomics, is a method that is used in biological research and drug discovery to identify substances such as small molecules, peptides, or RNAi that alter the phenotype of a cell in a desired manner. Hence high content screening is a type of phenotypic screen conducted in cells involving the analysis of whole cells or components of cells with simultaneous readout of several parameters. HCS is related to high-throughput screening (HTS), in which thousands of compounds are tested in parallel for their activity in one or more biological assays, but involves assays of more complex cellular phenotypes as outputs. Phenotypic changes may include increases or decreases in the production of cellular products such as proteins and/or changes in the morphology of the cell. Hence HCA typically involves automated microscopy and image analysis. Unlike high-content analysis, high-content screening implies a level of throughput which is why the term "screening" differentiates HCS from HCA, which may be high in content but low in throughput.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Point-of-care testing</span> Diagnostic testing performed at or near the point of care

Point-of-care testing (POCT), also called near-patient testing or bedside testing, is defined as medical diagnostic testing at or near the point of care—that is, at the time and place of patient care. This contrasts with the historical pattern in which testing was wholly or mostly confined to the medical laboratory, which entailed sending off specimens away from the point of care and then waiting hours or days to learn the results, during which time care must continue without the desired information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robotic arm</span> Type of mechanical arm with similar functions to a human arm

A robotic arm is a type of mechanical arm, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm; the arm may be the sum total of the mechanism or may be part of a more complex robot. The links of such a manipulator are connected by joints allowing either rotational motion or translational (linear) displacement. The links of the manipulator can be considered to form a kinematic chain. The terminus of the kinematic chain of the manipulator is called the end effector and it is analogous to the human hand. However, the term "robotic hand" as a synonym of the robotic arm is often proscribed.


Caliper, A PerkinElmer Company produces products and services for life sciences research. The firm, founded in 1995, is based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts with direct sales, service and application-support operations in countries around the globe. The firm's products include instruments, software and reagents, laboratory automation tools microfluidics, lab automation & liquid handling, optical imaging technologies, and services for drug discovery and drug development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open-source robotics</span> Open-source branch of robotics

Open-source robotics is a branch of robotics where robots are developed with open-source hardware and free and open-source software, publicly sharing blueprints, schematics, and source code. It is thus closely related to the open design movement, the maker movement and open science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Sgro</span> American mathematician

Joseph A. Sgro is an American mathematician, neurologist / neurophysiologist, and an engineering technologist / entrepreneur in the field of frame grabbers, high-speed cameras, smart cameras, image processors, computer vision, and machine vision and learning technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Automated synthesis</span> Type of chemical synthesis

Automated synthesis or automatic synthesis is a set of techniques that use robotic equipment to perform chemical synthesis in an automated way. Automating processes allows for higher efficiency and product quality although automation technology can be cost-prohibitive and there are concerns regarding overdependence and job displacement. Chemical processes were automated throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with major developments happening in the previous thirty years, as technology advanced. Tasks that are performed may include: synthesis in variety of different conditions, sample preparation, purification, and extractions. Applications of automated synthesis are found on research and industrial scales in a wide variety of fields including polymers, personal care, and radiosynthesis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autosampler</span> Device periodically collecting samples for an analytical instrument

An autosampler is commonly a device that is coupled to an analytical instrument providing samples periodically for analysis. An autosampler can also be understood as a device that collects samples periodically from a large sample source, like the atmosphere or a lake, for example.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multiplexed point-of-care testing</span> Bedside testing technology

Multiplexed point-of-care testing (xPOCT) is a more complex form of point-of-care testing (POCT), or bedside testing. Point-of-care testing is designed to provide diagnostic tests at or near the time and place that the patient is admitted. POCT uses the concentrations of analytes to provide the user with information on the physiological state of the patient. An analyte is a substance, chemical or biological, that is being analyzed using a certain instrument. While point-of-care testing is the quantification of one analyte from one in vitro sample, multiplexed point-of-care testing is the simultaneous on-site quantification of various analytes from a single sample.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opentrons</span> Bioscience liquid handler manufacturer

Opentrons Labwords Inc. is a biotechnology company that manufactures liquid handling robots that use open-source software, which at one point used open-source hardware but no longer does. Their robots can be used by scientists to manipulate small volumes of liquids for the purpose of undertaking biochemical or chemical reactions. Currently, they offer the OT-2 and Flex robots. These robots are used primarily by researchers and scientists interested in DIY biology, but they are increasingly being used by other biologists.

The calibrated automated thrombogram is a thrombin generation assay (TGA) and global coagulation assay (GCA) which can be used as a coagulation test to assess thrombotic risk. It is the most widely used TGA. The CAT is a semi-automated test performed in a 96-well plate and requires specialized technologists to be performed. As a result, it has seen low implementation in routine laboratories and has been more limited to research settings. Lack of standardization with the CAT has also led to difficulties in study-to-study comparisons in research. However, efforts have recently been made towards standardization of the assay. An example of a specific commercial CAT is the Thrombinoscope by Thrombinoscope BV.

A cloud laboratory is a heavily automated, centralized research laboratory where scientists can run an experiment from a computer in a remote location. Cloud laboratories offer the execution of life science research experiments under a cloud computing service model, allowing researchers to retain full control over experimental design. Users create experimental protocols through a high-level API and the experiment is executed in the cloud laboratory, with no need for the user to be involved.

References

  1. ↑ Olsen, Kevin (2012-12-01). "The First 110 Years of Laboratory Automation Technologies, Applications, and the Creative Scientist". Journal of Laboratory Automation. 17 (6): 469–480. doi: 10.1177/2211068212455631 . ISSN   2211-0682. PMID   22893633. S2CID   37758591.[ permanent dead link ]
  2. ↑ Felder, Robin A. (2006-04-01). "The Clinical Chemist: Masahide Sasaki, MD, PhD (August 27, 1933 – September 23, 2005)". Clinical Chemistry. 52 (4): 791–792. doi: 10.1373/clinchem.2006.067686 . ISSN   0009-9147.
  3. ↑ Boyd, James (2002-01-18). "Robotic Laboratory Automation". Science. 295 (5554): 517–518. doi:10.1126/science.295.5554.517. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   11799250. S2CID   108766687.
  4. ↑ "LIM Source, a laboratory information management systems resource". Archived from the original on 2009-08-11. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  5. ↑ "Clinical Chemistry 46, No. 5, 2000, pgs. 246–250" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-06-07. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  6. ↑ "Health Management Technology magazine, October 1, 1995". Archived from the original on 2012-02-17. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  7. ↑ "Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (formerly NCCLS)". Archived from the original on 2008-10-07. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  8. ↑ Felder, Robin A (1998-12-01). "Modular workcells: modern methods for laboratory automation". Clinica Chimica Acta. 278 (2): 257–267. doi:10.1016/S0009-8981(98)00151-X. PMID   10023832.
  9. 1 2 Carvalho, Matheus C. (2013-08-01). "Integration of Analytical Instruments with Computer Scripting". Journal of Laboratory Automation. 18 (4): 328–333. doi: 10.1177/2211068213476288 . ISSN   2211-0682. PMID   23413273.
  10. ↑ Pearce, Joshua M. (2014-01-01). Chapter 1 – Introduction to Open-Source Hardware for Science. Boston: Elsevier. pp. 1–11. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-410462-4.00001-9. ISBN   9780124104624.
  11. ↑ Groth, P.; Cox, J. (2017). "Indicators for the use of robotic labs in basic biomedical research: A literature analysis". PeerJ. 5: e3997. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3997 . PMC   5681851 . PMID   29134146.
  12. 1 2 Carvalho, Matheus C.; Eyre, Bradley D. (2013-12-01). "A low cost, easy to build, portable, and universal autosampler for liquids". Methods in Oceanography. 8: 23–32. Bibcode:2013MetOc...8...23C. doi:10.1016/j.mio.2014.06.001.
  13. ↑ Chiu, Shih-Hao; Urban, Pawel L. (2015). "Robotics-assisted mass spectrometry assay platform enabled by open-source electronics". Biosensors and Bioelectronics. 64: 260–268. doi:10.1016/j.bios.2014.08.087. PMID   25232666.
  14. ↑ Chen, Chih-Lin; Chen, Ting-Ru; Chiu, Shih-Hao; Urban, Pawel L. (2017). "Dual robotic arm "production line" mass spectrometry assay guided by multiple Arduino-type microcontrollers". Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical. 239: 608–616. doi:10.1016/j.snb.2016.08.031.
  15. ↑ Urban, Pawel L. (2015). "Universal electronics for miniature and automated chemical assays". The Analyst. 140 (4): 963–975. Bibcode:2015Ana...140..963U. doi:10.1039/C4AN02013H. PMID   25535820. Archived from the original on 2018-11-06. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
  16. ↑ Urban, Pawel (2016-04-20). "Open hardware: Self-built labware stimulates creativity". Nature. 532 (7599): 313. Bibcode:2016Natur.532..313U. doi: 10.1038/532313d . PMID   27127816.
  17. ↑ Baillargeon P, Spicer TP, Scampavia L (2019). "Applications for Open Source Microplate-Compatible Illumination Panels". J Vis Exp (152): e60088. doi:10.3791/60088. PMID   31633701. S2CID   204813315.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  18. ↑ Baillargeon P, Coss-Flores K, Singhera F, Shumate J, Williams H, DeLuca L; et al. (2019). "Design of Microplate-Compatible Illumination Panels for a Semiautomated Benchtop Pipetting System". SLAS Technol. 24 (4): 399–407. doi: 10.1177/2472630318822476 . PMID   30698997. S2CID   73412170.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ↑ Iglehart B (2018). "MVO Automation Platform: Addressing Unmet Needs in Clinical Laboratories with Microcontrollers, 3D Printing, and Open-Source Hardware/Software". SLAS Technol. 23 (5): 423–431. doi: 10.1177/2472630318773693 . PMID   29746790. S2CID   13671203.
  20. ↑ Waltz, Emily (2017-03-22). "DIY Lego Robot Brings Lab Automation to Students - IEEE Spectrum". IEEE Spectrum . Retrieved 2024-02-02.
  21. ↑ Carvalho, Matheus. "Auto-HPGe, an autosampler for gamma-ray spectroscopy using high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors and heavy shields". HardwareX.
  22. ↑ Carvalho, Matheus (2018). "Osmar, the open-source microsyringe autosampler". HardwareX. 3: 10–38. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2018.01.001 .
  23. ↑ Carvalho, Matheus (2017). Practical Laboratory Automation: Made Easy with AutoIt. Wiley VCH. ISBN   978-3-527-34158-0.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.