Dispelling lab automation myths

If you want to explore the idea of ????automating some repetitive processes in the laboratory, this e-book will help you decide whether automation is right for you. If you are interested in automating liquid handling, use this eBook as a resource to help you through each step and learn more about this technology. You can start by understanding which types of workflows really benefit from automated liquid handling (and which types of workflows don’t), then explore the various features you should consider when choosing the right robot for your lab. Liquid-handling robots have a range of technical capabilities that must meet the various ways scientists use them. In Lab Manager's 2017 Automated Liquid Handling Survey Results, the top uses include serial dilution, plate replication, and PCR setup, as well as plate reformatting, high-throughput screening, and whole-genome amplification. Nearly 30% of respondents purchasing automation systems are first-time buyers, but this figure is on the low side: at Opentrons, for example, nearly 70% of customers are new to automation. Automation is easier than ever, and many labs are adding robots for the first time—and you can too! All you need to do is learn a few basics and you're good to go. That's why we created this guide.

Overall advantages of laboratory automation

When automation is combined in an efficient and effective manner, it can improve liquid handling in many ways. First, scientists will save time because they won't need to pipette on top of all their other lab work. Second, automation increases throughput and enables efficient workflow scaling. Third, automation can improve accuracy from each liquid handling step to the next because it minimizes the human errors typically introduced into the workflow. Fourth, at the end of the automation run, you receive a receipt – meaning you can keep an eye on exactly what happened to your sample, and generating data in this way allows for more complex analyses. Fifth, humans are not good at repetitive movements; our joints get injured when we do the same movements over and over again. Automation frees researchers from the repetitive stress injuries that often result from pipetting.

As laboratories gain all these improvements from automation, laboratory personnel are freed to perform other, more meaningful activities in the laboratory, such as data analysis, experimental design, and writing up results for publication. However, reaping all these benefits requires some fairly sophisticated technology and processes. Liquid handling automation is complex, but using it doesn’t have to be. What's more, the decision to switch from manual pipetting to automated liquid handling can be simplified. Scientists have to think about a lot - both in their own labs and in the automation market - but this e-book makes it easy to get started. When automation is the perfect fit for a research group's liquid handling needs, life in the lab changes for the better—results become more accurate and reproducible, experiment runs become easier, and productivity increases dramatically.

Choose the best automated workflow

To really dig into it, let’s consider what makes a good automated workflow and what doesn’t. The key general concepts can be applied to almost any protocol. First, review the "Figure 3: Your workflow is a good candidate for automation if..." table below and compare it to the liquid handling automation workflow you are considering. If all five functions in the table apply to a common workflow in your lab, you should automate it! If some of these features don't apply to the workflow you're considering, sticking to manual pipetting may be the most practical. Let's consider these features in more detail. First, you should aim for an automation solution that can easily accommodate the liquid volumes you use most frequently in your workflow – if the liquid volumes are between 1μl and 1000μl, you will find many automation options available. For smaller or larger capacities,

Some robots can work, but they are usually more expensive or only work in more restricted use cases.

Second, you should apply automated liquid handling to processes that are cumbersome, time-consuming, error-prone, and tedious.

Third, automated workflows should be ones that the lab runs frequently—at least once a week—to truly justify the transition to automation. Anything less than that and it will take some time to achieve a net positive return on your investment of money and time. If you do it weekly, automated workflows can pay back the initial investment of time and money within 8-12 months. Some lab robots can pay for themselves in a matter of weeks if you automate your workflow on a daily basis.

Fourth, you need to consider how much of a given workflow you can automate within your budget—how much time you can "leave" working in the lab. For example, you can buy robots with automated incubators and centrifuges, but these are too expensive for most laboratories. However, it's important to remember that just because you're using a centrifuge 5x to spin an object in a manual protocol doesn't necessarily mean you need to run it the exact same way on a robot; there are many good workarounds for doing so Automate tricky manual steps (see “Figure 4: Transform manual processes into automation”).

Original address:Bring automation to your lab