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By Claudio Bui
Innovation in biotechnology often hinges on precision and customization—essential qualities that enable breakthroughs in fields like single-cell spatial genomics. For companies at the forefront of this research, having the right tools...
By Claudio Bui
Innovation in genomics doesn’t happen in isolation. Achieving breakthroughs requires appropriate tools like liquid handling systems that deliver precision, reliability, and speed—and, just as importantly, partnerships that enable...
By Nick Smith
The launch of your new in vitro diagnostics (IVD) system is imminent. You’ve read in our first article about the 5 major ingredients for success: retaining technical expertise, investing in training, ensuring regional focus,...
By Adrian Cortes Sanchon
Collaboration is the cornerstone of innovation. An ongoing collaboration between Tecan, manufacturer of robust, high-quality liquid handling automation systems, its partner, Macherey-Nagel, developer of nucleic acid...
By Ashesh Saraiya
NGS has transformed genomics research and contributed to breakthroughs in many areas of medical science. At the same time, making NGS robust, reliable and cost-effective can be challenging for many labs. In particular, generating...
In true holiday spirit, isn't it time we spoke the truth about the toll next generation sequencing (NGS) is taking on your lab? Yes, NGS is a revolutionary technology that can help you break new ground in your research, but when...
By Roberta Veneroni
In the “new normal” post COVID-19, how can genomics labs be better prepared to respond quickly to the unexpected? How can they deliver reliable and insightful genetic sequencing results faster and more efficiently? What is the...
By David Wold
The global COVID-19 pandemic is putting unprecedented pressure on laboratories to meet demand for accurate, large-scale, high-throughput testing. In such extreme circumstances, conserving samples and minimizing risk of contamination is...
By Claudio Bui
Getting to market quickly is essential when introducing new instrumentation into a fast-paced industry sector like genomics. When the pressure is on, rapid prototyping can be the key to quickly and efficiently building a reliable...
By Claudio Bui
Getting to market in time with a fully functional IVD instrument that is automated requires precision planning and laser focus at all stages of development. At the onset of your project, it is important to weigh the development risks...
By Claudio Bui
With complex products like laboratory instruments used to automate genomic testing, time to market is often a critical factor in determining whether or not to go ahead with product development. The obvious problem is that as projects...
By Dr Beatrice Marg-Haufe
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced everyone to look at laboratory routines to see if they are really pandemic proof. For example, the explosive demand for high throughput genomic analysis often creates pressures upstream to...
By David Wold
Designing and manufacturing lab instruments that include automated liquid handling is challenging at the best of times, but in the face of increased demand for faster testing, it’s even more critical to select the right partner and...
By Joe Rotter
How do you prepare for the unexpected? The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light how challenging it is for labs and production facilities to scale up quickly in times of need. The sudden surge in demand for laboratory solutions at the...
By Nicholas Smith
It can be easy to dismiss outsourcing lab automation in favour of seemingly less expensive do-it-yourself (DIY) solutions. However, outsourcing is more cost effective than it might seem. By taking advantage of the expertise of...
By Beatrice Marg-Haufe
One of the steps in DNA sample preparation that is often overlooked when moving from manual to automated methods, is the quantification and normalization of nucleic acid samples that are destined for downstream analysis in...
By Beatrice Marg-Haufe
Written in collaboration with Zymo Research, Irvine, CA, USA.
Applications based on next-generation sequencing (NGS), and more recently third-generation sequencing, play a central and ever-growing role in disease research....
By Beatrice Marg-Haufe
Written in collaboration with Zymo Research, Irvine, CA, USA.
Next-generation sequencing (NGS*) has revolutionized genomic research, allowing entire genomes to be sequenced in a single day. This has led to massive advances in...
By Beatrice Marg-Haufe
Written in collaboration with Zymo Research, Irvine, CA, USA.
With the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS), the field of metagenomics has exploded in recent years, as scientists are now able to study microbes as...
By Claudio Bui and Yves Wurmitzer
Innovating, developing and bringing a new automated liquid handling product to market quickly, before requirements and needs change, is no easy feat. A software development kit (SDK) supporting your platform and...
By Claudio Bui
Lab automation and liquid handling solutions are evolving rapidly, shaped by many of the same forces and disruptive technologies that define the fourth industrial revolution. Alongside Industry 4.0, you could say that the era of...
By Claudio Bui
Analytical instrumentation is evolving so fast that engineers run the risk of their robotic platforms becoming obsolete before the development cycle can be completed. The competitive life science instrumentation market is expanding at...
By Hal Wehrenberg
What happens when lab automation projects are unsuccessful? One out-take is learning what creates a stronger process and methodology. That's exactly what we found at Tecan after working with several hundred customers on lab...
By David Wold
With high-throughput genomics impacting every corner of biology, the demand for more efficient Next-generation sequencing (NGS) workflows is growing rapidly. Automating the process of NGS sample preparation is crucial to avoid...
By Roberta Veneroni
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is driving dramatic progress in many fields of research. However, the value of NGS data is often limited by factors such as poor analysis pipelines and poor library quality. One way to improve the...
By Enrique Neumann
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has generated a raft of new developments and discoveries. However, NGS is a complex process, and scientists face many technical difficulties throughout the workflow. NGS sample preparation, for...
By Roberta Veneroni
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is helping to advance genomics research at an unprecedented rate. However, the process can be technically challenging, and any errors can significantly impact the reliability and accuracy of your...
By Jason Meredith
Automated lab analytics solutions are increasingly taking to the cloud to give labs real-time visibility of instrument and consumables usage. This is valuable information – for example to understand what throughput is available to...
By Beatrice Marg-Haufe
Research and technology development focused on synthetic biology (synbio) and systems biology are expanding, as are its real-world applications. Even as more traditional synbio approaches, which involve engineering microbes to...
By Beatrice Marg-Haufe
The "first" genomics era began with the landmark Human Genome Project, which launched in 1990 and was completed in 2003, leading to the sequencing of the 20,000-25,000 human genes. It gave birth to an omics revolution and, by...
By Hal Wehrenberg
All automation is controlled by software and understanding the differences between options can be complicated. Underestimating the impact of software may set back your budget or critical timelines.
By Severin Heynen
Improving lab procurement processes involves more than just putting e-procurement or lab management software in place. In most cases accessing, managing and analyzing the data that you use to support purchase decisions and feed...
By Severin Heynen
As labs face tighter profit margins and the need to minimize cost of goods, there is increasing pressure to implement more efficient and responsive mechanisms for procurement and inventory management. A large proportion of annual...
By Severin Heynen
As a procurement planner in the competitive life sciences sector, how do you ensure your organization adapts swiftly to the rapidly changing demands of customers and stakeholders? Whether supporting a CRO, pharmaceutical company,...
By Hal Wehrenberg
Congratulations. It took you quite some time and effort to convince your management or institution on the value of investing in automating your experimental or clinical workflow. The applications were submitted, the presentations...
By Sirak Kifle
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology continues to advance at a high speed, and a growing range of new applications is constantly being developed. Microbiology and antibiotic susceptibility testing is one such application area...
By Claudio Bui
The demand for advanced medical and diagnostic testing continues to accelerate. Laboratories, hospitals, and emerging consumer genomics companies are demanding quicker test sequences resulting in the design and development of new...
By Domink Bell
When it’s time to move your biotechnology breakthrough towards commercialization, your specific application workflows may require a custom approach to lab automation. If your requirements are uncommon, there may be no off-the-shelf...
By Sirak Kilfe
With next-generation sequencing (NGS), the combined use of different instruments, workstations, manual approaches, and software can lead to unnecessary, time-consuming complications and errors, especially in high-throughput...
By Domink Bell
You’ve done your testing on the benchtop and proven that your new biotechnology innovation works in your hands. Now comes the exciting part – turning your solution into a breakthrough product that is ready for broader use and...
By Domink Bell
With biotechnology advancing at an astounding rate, last year’s innovations often become routine tools for today’s breakthroughs. For example, next generation sequencing (NGS) is now an integral step in CRISPR/Cas9 constructions. The...
By Sirak Kifle
Clinical and public health microbiology laboratories reduce the burden of infectious diseases by detecting and characterizing pathogens in infected patients and communities. Next generation sequencing (NGS) analysis can improve...
By Martin Braendle
It is estimated that every six months the world’s laboratories generate more biological data than has ever before been created in human history. Even in non-scientific publications, we read about synthetic biology, gene editing,...
By Enrique Neumann
Previously, we looked at what differentiates a competent genomics scientist from a ”rock star”, and learned that the true geniuses are both fast and productive, but nevertheless always focus on quality. Similar to a conventional...
By Hal Wehrenberg
Cost-efficient application of advanced technologies such as next generation sequencing (NGS) and liquid-chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC-MS) demands sophisticated automation solutions that can handle complex protocols and...
By Enrique Neumann
It’s an exciting time to be working in genomics. The explosion of sequence data and library preparation methods along with big advances in areas like gene editing and bioinformatics, is paving the way for breakthroughs that seem...
(Part 2 of 2). The effect of one's lifestyle on the epigenetic steerage of future generations, reviewed in Part I of this series, is a sobering thought. But these insights in epigenetic-based gene regulation are also opening up new...
By Enrique Neumann
Much of the work done in a genomics lab is repetitive, labor-intensive, and just plain boring. Is this really the best use of highly skilled scientists? How do you keep staff motivation up when another couple hundred samples roll...
By Kevin Moore
The trend towards more automated workflows in research is helping to significantly improve data quality as well as laboratory productivity. But when it comes to choosing an automated system for liquid handling and dispensing, it can...
By Kevin Moore
Always a great forum for networking and sharing information on the latest developments and trends in laboratory automation, SLAS didn’t disappoint this year. The biggest buzz in 2018 focused on the increasingly important role that...
By Dr. Enrique Neumann
They say that the era of the $100 genome is upon us, but is that true for you? While cost analyses of DNA sequencing indicate that this landmark is finally within reach, the reality is that most NGS labs are still spending far...
We are constantly bombarded with advice on what to eat and drink, and how to exercise. Pregnant women are particularly in the spotlight, being told to avoid exposing their developing fetus to alcohol, tobacco, chemical pollutants, and...
By Alexandra Sommer
Rapid advances in molecular diagnostics, including the application of advanced methods such as next generation sequencing (NGS) in clinical diagnostics, are revolutionizing healthcare. But this puts a lot of pressure on clinical...
By Siegfried Sasshofer
An automated liquid handler for sample processing can significantly increase your productivity. It becomes even more powerful when integrated with other workflow components to enable you to create fully automated walkaway...
By Ralf Masantschek
Automated pipetting is among the most effective ways to minimize human error, increase precision and accuracy, and speed up a lab workflow. However, deciding what the ‘must have’ components are that you need for successful...
By Kevin Moore
Next generation sequencing (NGS) and the related applications for cell-based assay development are poised to be a powerful combination in the field of genomics. SLAS 2018 dives into this topic in the track "Assay development and...
By Kevin Moore
Biomarker discovery and development depends critically upon the accessibility and quality of biospecimens. Higher throughput and more integrated approaches for biospecimen management and biobanking are becoming increasingly important...
By Simon Fogarty
In the rapidly evolving, data-driven life sciences sector, it is increasingly common to see labs developing their own in-house solutions to enable scale-up of novel methods, and to bridge technology gaps not yet filled by automation...
By Kevin Moore
From phenotypic assays to 4D cell tracking, high-tech methods are of increasing importance for complex screens. This expanding area will be a main presentation track at SLAS 2018 entitled "Assay Development and Screening" and...
By Simon Fogarty
High throughput screening methods for phenotypic drug discovery are in demand, as novel disease models arise and increase in complexity. A main presentation track at SLAS2018 entitled "Automation and High-throughput Technologies"...
By Kevin Moore
Automated liquid handling can eliminate many tedious tasks, improve your productivity and free up valuable time for better things…but only if you implement the right solutions. Whether you are working in genomics, cell biology, drug...
By Kevin Moore
Like gravity, some phenomena are so integral to our existence that we’re barely conscious of them. Maybe that’s why the research community was largely taken by surprise when it was announced that this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology...
By Kevin Moore
The repeatability of biomedical research has become a major issue, and the ability to achieve reproducible research results can only be as good as the liquid handling performance. Automation has become a given step in the drive to...
By Nicholas Smith
Cognitive computing and artificial intelligence have the power to save us from drowning in the vast and growing sea of data needed for precision medicine, but what will it take to achieve a timely return on investment? Experts from...
By Kevin Moore
Data driven decision-making depends on generating reliable data in a timely fashion. But the reproducibility of biomedical research results, or rather lack of it, has become a big issue. A recent Nature survey¹ revealed a...
By Alexandra Sommer
The drive to make healthcare more targeted and more personalized has accelerated the application of increasingly sophisticated technologies, such as next generation sequencing (NGS). The result has been the introduction of some...
By Enrique Neumann
Gene editing is crucial to pharmaceutical development. CRISPR-Cas9 promises to revolutionize the role gene editing plays in drug discovery and even therapeutics.
By Jason Meredith
In an increasingly regulated industry, clinical laboratories and manufacturers of in vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests are feeling the pressure to ensure regulatory compliance, while at the same time striving to increase productivity...
By Jason Meredith
Hospitals are becoming the new centers of innovation for novel clinical diagnostic tests. While this is enabling more sophisticated and personalized approaches to disease prevention, early diagnosis, and targeted treatment, it also...
By Nicholas Smith
Human genetics and drug discovery are now inextricably linked. Large pharmaceutical companies, small biotech and even academic laboratories are sequencing data to identify potential targets for new therapies. But is this...
By Nicholas Smith
Scientists around the world have made great strides in genetic testing. But when it comes to realizing the benefits across a wide range of medical specialties access to information is key.
By Dr Manuel Bauer
Why would you want to miniaturize your PCR experiments if they are working well as they are? Because manual PCR setup is tedious and hand pipetting is error-prone. Miniaturization allows for automation, minimizing the labor- and...
By Severin Heynen
As we have seen in the previous posts in this series, developing validated analytical methods becomes more cost- and time-effective when solutions with guaranteed compatibility are incorporated into the analytical system.
By Florence Collins
A long-term clinical lab study lasting over 10 years showed that more than 60% of all mistakes in the stat lab (the lab that receives high priority samples) can be attributed to the pre-analytical phase. This figure has not...
By Severin Heynen
Well-documented reliable, accurate data that meets regulatory demands is crucial for success The key is to develop robust analytical methods based on instruments and other components that perform well together to ease the way...
By Rick Luedke You may be convinced that your academic research laboratory is humming along just fine and cannot benefit from, take the time to consider, and perhaps most of all, afford adding automation to your workflow.
By Jana Langhoff
Manual colony picking is a highly labor-intensive task that is slow, tedious, and error-prone. Cost-effective automation makes the process more consistent and reliable, as well as considerably faster, enabling hundreds of colonies...
SLAS2017 Presentation by Joy Rae-Radecki Crandall, Ambry Genetics
Ambry Genetics operates a CLIA-licensed genetics testing laboratory that processes clinical samples primarily using next-generation sequencing (NGS), followed by Sanger sequencing to...
By Florence Collins
Scinomix, Inc., founded in 2001, creates customized solutions for labeling tubes, vials and plates in many life science applications. We took the chance to ask Nigel Malterer (CEO) and Jonathan King (Automation Software Engineer)...
By Florence Collins
Barcodes play a central role in minimizing the risk of error in lab automation by providing secure tracking of components throughout the workflow. Barcode-guided lab automation can be simple and cost-effective, with significant...
By Severin Heynen
As we have learned in previous posts in this series, only pipette tips marked ‘sterile’ are guaranteed with a sterility assurance level (SAL) of 10-6. Pipette tips labeled as ‘Pre-sterile’ do not give such sterility assurances.
By Agnieszka Sitarska
The life science industry is constantly fighting to improve throughput and reduce costs through the ‘industrialization’ of research and development. You have to strike a balance between moving quickly (productivity) and...
By Jon Smith
If you’ve decided to take advantage of next generation sequencing (NGS) for HLA typing, your timing couldn’t be better. With the recent introduction of more affordable bench-top sequencers and targeted HLA sequencing panels, NGS is more...
By Severin Heynen
With multiple tests to perform on a tiny volume, samples are getting more precious. And as Next Generation Sequencing pushes the envelope on cost and throughput, scientists are looking for ways of reducing reagent volumes without...
By Jon Smith
For patients in need of vital transplants, fast and accurate tissue typing can mean earlier treatment and a better chance of survival. Next generation sequencing (NGS) is revolutionizing human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing by providing...
By Jon Smith
They don’t take up much room in your DNA – a mere 4 megabases on the short arm of Chromosome 6 – but Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) genes play a defining role in whether you will develop an autoimmune disorder, fend off an infectious...
By Severin Heynen
The industrialization of biology has become possible thanks to the automation of repetitive tasks such as liquid handling, providing several benefits. It allows customers to extend their window of operations, achieve greater assay...
By Severin Heynen
Maintaining control over sterility is critical to success in many academic and clinical research applications, including microbiological assays, biobanking, and handling cells.
By Martin Braendle
Robotics and automation have become essential to the future plans of drug discovery and clinical diagnostic companies. Executives are looking to increase productivity and reduce costs, and automation fits the bill in every respect.
By Beatrice Marg-Haufe
It is becoming increasingly clear that at least some medical conditions previously ascribed only to genetic and biochemical changes in the brain, including neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders, are linked to...
By Beatrice Marg-Haufe
Urban planning, urban warfare, urban decay..., and next up, urban metagenomics. If you had any doubt that we are living in the genomics era, consider this: On June 21st 2016, the International MetaSUB Consortium began...
By Enrique Neumann
The term genomics might at first lead you to think of the human genome and the new micro-industry subsectors it has spawned, from prenatal genetic screening for heritable diseases (and one day perhaps to select for "desirable"...
By Dr. Manuel Bauer
As Product Manager for Liquid Handling and Robotics at Tecan, I had the opportunity to introduce the power of the Tecan D300e Digital Dispenser at SLAS2016. You can view the presentation here. Without giving too much away, all...
By Hal Wehrenberg
What happens when the robots in your lab become self aware? Take a closer look at this issue and the possibilities by watching this presentation on self-aware automation from SLAS 2016.
By Achim von Leoprechting
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is poised to become a decisive tool in diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic applications in oncology. In the first part of this two-part series, we saw that sequencing tumor-derived DNA...
By Achim von Leoprechting
Massively parallel sequencing has rapidly become a must-have tool of the trade in molecular biology and drug discovery research. In recent years, the cost of next-generation sequencing (NGS) has declined exponentially,...