Commissioning of an Opentrons robot in the Regional Hospital of Málaga (2020)
Opentrons Labworks, Inc. (or Opentrons) 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.[citation needed] 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.[1]
OT-2 – The OT-2 was released in 2018 and has seen utilization as one of the tools that researchers are leveraging in the fight against COVID-19.[2][3] The OT-2 and later products, including its electronic micropipettes and hardware modules, are closed source (proprietary) hardware. Only coarse CAD files for the enclosure have been released,[4] with no details on the internals, such that it no longer complies with current open hardware standards.[5][6][original research?] The software remains open source.
Flex – Successor to the OT-2, the Flex was released in 2023, "measures two feet by two feet by two feet", and is purchased with a one-time cost rather than a robot as a service (RaaS) subscription.[7] Its open-source and accessible API allows it to interact with potential AI tools.[8]
Flex Prep – Similar to the Flex, the Flex Prep was released in 2024 and provides a no-code software for setting up pipetting tasks and executing that workflow through the Flex Prep touchscreen.[9]
Discontinued:
OT-1 – The OpenTrons OT-1 was the result of a crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform and was released in 2015 for $2,000.[10][11] This robot employed adapters to actuate handheld micropipettes. The release of the OT-1 marked the first commercial open source liquid handling robot in the life science industry. It was also the last in the series to adhere to open hardware standards,[5][6] however, editable CAD files were not released. It is no longer commercially available,[12] though at least one replication was attempted.[13]
A person using Opentrons liquid handling robot inside one of the OpenCell laboratories.
In 2014, the startup officially launched with financial backing from HAXLR8TR, a hardware accelerator in Shenzhen, China. In late 2014, they launch a Kickstarter campaign.[10][14] They show their machine inserting DNA inside E. coli after their campaign successfully gets funded.[15] Jonathan Brennan-Badal, who was VP of strategy at ComiXology and a board member of Genspace, joined Opentrons in 2014 and is the current CEO.[16]
In 2016, Opentrons was part of Y Combinator's Winter cohort of startups.[17]
Impact
Opentrons robots have had a variety of uses in the scientific and DIY community. Scientists at UCSD modified an existing OT-1 robot to automate adding in reagents and imaging their cell signaling experiments.[1] Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University used the OT-2, Opentrons Python API, and OpenAI'sGPT-4 to autonomously design, plan, and perform experiments.[18]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Opentrons helped set up the Pandemic Response Lab (PRL), a sequencing facility located in Queens, New York.[19] Opentrons' robots at the PRL helped speed up turnaround time for COVID-19 testing, going from 7 to 14 days to 12 hours, and reducing costs from $2,000 to under $28.[20] Institutions that made use of Opentrons' robots for COVID-19 testing include: Mayo Clinic, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, and BioNTech.[14]
Subsidiaries
As a company, Opentrons has a number of subsidiaries.[21]
Opentrons Robotics – business unit for user-friendly lab automation
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