automation

The annual international Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) conference is the highlight of the year for scientists in academia, industry, and government focused on leveraging the power of automation to achieve scientific breakthroughs. Here are some highlights of this year’s conference and how Bio-Rad contributed to it.

The current gold standard in monoclonal antibody purification for most researchers is affinity purification with Protein A or G followed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC). Although robust and highly effective, this workflow does have critical pain points and inefficiencies, leaving researchers to feel that they must oversee every step of their workflow, not leaving their chromatography system unattended for more than a few minutes.

Disparate systems, distributed teams, and overly complex technologies are a recipe for inefficiency in research and development (R&D) laboratories, especially in drug development. With the pressure to meet challenging deadlines and strict regulations, it is easy for working practices to become disconnected. To improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of data generation, acquisition, and management, R&D organizations are looking to streamline their lab practices by investing in technologies that automate data generation, accelerate data collection speed and storage, and enhance the quality and reliability of the information produced. Lab automation presents exciting opportunities for future research, promising novel advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), liquid handling robotics, and cloud-based data workflows.

High-throughput screening (HTS) is a critical component of the entire drug discovery process. Flow cytometry is an attractive alternative to imaging and plate reader assays for HTS in drug discovery, due to its increased sensitivity and multiplexing capabilities. The ZE5 Cell Analyzer eliminates pain points that have hindered the full adoption of flow cytometry for drug discovery.

In an effort to increase the return on investment of research and development, pharmaceutical companies are constantly looking for ways to reduce costs. One way to do this is to incorporate technology and minimize human interaction. As a result, scientists will have more time to focus on the design and analysis of experiments. How will the Lab of the Future reflect these changes?

Presented by: Philip Chapman, MSc, Senior Global Product Manager

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Learn how to quickly optimize conditions prior to automating a four-step purification of a histidine-tagged recombinant protein. Automating purification reduces a multi-day process into 12 hours while increasing yield and reproducibility.